
Class?K^8) 
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ENGLISH LITERATURE 

FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST 
TO CHAUCER 



1 



*5 

46 

-59 

159 
179 

51 



HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

In Six Vols. Crown 2>vo. 

English Literature from the Beginning to the 
Norman Conquest. By Stopford A. Brooke, 
M.A. 

English Literature from the Norman Conquest 
to Chaucer. By W. H. Schofield, Ph.D. 



Chaucer. By the same Author. 



[In prepai-ation. 



Elizabethan Literature (1560=1665). By Professor 
George Saintsbury. 



Eighteenth Century Literature (1660=1780). 

By Edmund Gosse, M.A. 

Nineteenth Century Literature (1780=1900). 

By Professor George Saintsbury. 



Introduction 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 



CHAPTER II 
Anglo -Latin Literature 



26 



CHAPTER III 

Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French Literature 



CHAPTER IV 

The English Language 



140 



CHAPTER V 
Romance .... 

1.- The Matter of France 
2. The Matter of Britain 

(a) Origin and Development 

(b) The Breton Lays in English 

(c) The Cycle of Tristram . 

xi 



M5 

146 

159 

159 
179 
201 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Romance (Contd.) 

(d) The Cycle of Gawain, Guinglain, Per 

CEVAL, AND YWAIN 

(e) The Cycle of Lancelot . 
^f) The Quest of the Holy Grail 

(g) The Cycle of Merlin 
(h) The Death of Arthur . 



3. The Matter of England 

4. The Matter of Greece and Rome 

(a) The Story of Troy 

(b) The Story of Thebes 

5. The Matter of the Orient . 



214 

234 
240 
248 
253 

258 
282 

282 
295 

298 



6. Other Romances : — Byzantine and Early 
French ; Reminiscent ; Legendary and 
Historical; "The Nine Worthies" 



3°S 



CHAPTER VI 



Tales 



1. Oriental Tales 

2. Fabliaux 

3. Pious Tales 

4. Fables, Beast-Epics, and Bestiaries 

5. Collections 



320 

321 
323 
326 
330 
337 



CHAPTER VII 



Historical Works 

1. Chronicles 

2. Political Poems and Satires 



349 

349 
363 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

Religious Works . . . . • 374 

i. Bible Paraphrase and Apocryphal Story . 374 

2. Homilies ..... 379 

3. Legends and Lives of Saints . . . 389 

4. Visions ...... 397 

5. Books of Edification .... 403 

CHAPTER IX 
Didactic Works. . . . . .418 

1. Precept and Proverb Poems . . .418 

2. Debates ...... 424 

3. Books of Instruction and Utility . . 430 

CHAPTER X 

Songs and Lyrics . . . . -435 

CHAPTER XI 

Conclusion . . . . . .451 

APPENDICES 

1. Chronological Table . . . .458 

2. Bibliographical Notes .... 466 

INDEX . . . . . . .487 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTION 



The Norman Conquest inaugurated a distinctly new epoch in 
the literary as well as in the political history of England. Anglo- 
Saxon authors were then as suddenly and as permanently dis- 
placed as Anglo-Saxon kings. The literature afterwards read and 
written by Englishmen was thereby as completely transformed as 
the sentiments and tastes of English rulers. Clearly reflecting 
the altered attitude of the leaders of the people, the new styles of 
writing reveal in a measure the new national character, and betray 
important conditions determining its growth. 

The Christian religion had been imposed on the Saxons by 
their leaders, working upon the common folk from the chieftains 
down. At first the alien creed was but superficially accepted. 
Little by little, however, the new instruction greatly modified 
men's religious ideas, and Roman definitely replaced Germanic 
ritual. Likewise, the foreign types of literature introduced at 
the Conquest first found favour with the monarchs and courtiers, 
and were deliberately fostered by them, to the disregard of 
native forms. No effective protest was possible, and English 
thought for centuries to come was largely fashioned in the 
manner of the French. Throughout the whole period that here 
engages our attention, in forms of artistic expression as well as of 
religious service, the English openly acknowledged a Latin control. 
IS I b 



INTRODUCTION 



Nevertheless, though there was little independence in letters 
during this epoch, though it was not distinctively English as we 
now use the term, it is far from being the dull and barren stretch 
that so many literary historians would have us believe. If under 
Anglo-Norman rule compositions in the English vernacular were 
few and of slight account, this was certainly not occasioned 
by the people's inertia or distress, as the impression is often 
improperly given. Much to the contrary, the era was one of 
extraordinary intellectual activity, when, with greatly broadened 
horizons, with new interests awakened in Continental and Eastern 
affairs, constantly in contact with races of unlike temperament 
and tradition, Englishmen were in a state of growth and develop- 
ment when writing was inevitable, when- some way of satisfying 
the demands of the many alert and prosperous who were eager 
for knowledge and entertainment had to be contrived, when 
patriotic sentiment demanded expression, abuses called for a 
pen to denounce, and abounding piety sought support in books. 

What would have become of English literature had the 
foreign dominion not been established, no amount of speculation 
will ever determine. The fact is too often ignored that before 
1066 the Anglo-Saxons had a body of native literature distinctly 
superior to any which the Normans or French could boast at that 
time : their prose especially was unparalleled for extent and power 
in any European vernacular. It should, moreover, be kept in 
mind how brilliant were the writings of the remote Norsemen 
during the eleventh and two succeeding centuries, how they in 
Iceland and the Western Isles, under conditions doubtless no more 
exceptional than might have developed in England, produced 
much noble poetry and marvellous prose that we still read with 
delight. But, while admitting the possibility of a revival of 
interest in literature amongst the English, one cannot deny that 
the Normans came to their land when they greatly needed an 
external stimulus ; for ignorance was then rife in all parts, 
learning and culture were dying of inanition, and darkness 
seemed gathering round. The Conquest effected a wholesome 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 

FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST 
TO CHAUCER 



BY 

WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD, Ph.D. 



Out of olde feldes, as men seith, 
Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere ; 
And out of olde bokes, in good feith, 
Cometh al this newe science that men lere. 



Chaucer, Parlement of Foules. 



Nefo fork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
I906 

All rights reserved 



U8BARY of CONGRESS 
Two Comet Keceived 

OCT & 1906 

CeoywKin t.itry 
CLASS CC AM. No. 

/s-ys~zs~ 

COPY A. 



-(*£ 

^ 



Copyright, 1906, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1906. 



TO 

Professor GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE 
IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION 



PREFACE 

This is the first of two volumes concerning the literary history of 
England from the Norman Conquest to the time of Elizabeth. It 
covers particularly the period down to the birth of Chaucer, but 
deals also with such later productions (romances, tales, legends, 
and the like) as are written in early mediaeval styles. In treating 
the vernacular literature of this period I have adopted an arrange- 
ment which differs from any hitherto followed in a history of 
Middle English literature, though it is not uncommon in histories 
of contemporaneous works in Old French — that, namely, of 
bringing all writings of one kind together and tracing separately 
the evolution of each type. This method I decided upon, as 
Chaucer would say, "of ful avysement." After careful delibera- 
tion, it seemed to me to be the one most perspicuous and 
illuminating, because of the peculiar characteristics of the literary 
productions of the epoch : as I shall point out again in the 
Introduction, these are in large part anonymous in composition, 
impersonal in expression, international in currency, and static in 
type — wherefore their relations to one another are of a more 
intimate and persistent character within specific classes than at 
any later period of European history. Naturally, the second 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



volume will follow a different plan : after a broad consideration of 
the general tendencies of the era, it will treat particularly of the 
chief writings of prominent individuals, and will emphasise their 
personal qualities rather than the origin and development of their 
themes. In this first volume, it will be seen, nearly all of Chaucer's 
works are mentioned, because of their connection with earlier 
documents of similar kind ; but no attempt is made to describe 
Chaucer as a person, to trace the growth of his powers, or to 
examine the characteristics of his art. The position of Troilus 
and Cressida in the history of the Troy-legend is indicated here, 
where it is a matter of genuine interest ; and, consequently, 
irrelevant facts on this point will be omitted from the treatment 
of the poem as a literary creation when the suitable time comes 
to view it in that regard. 

Not only in arrangement, but also in subject matter, I have 
ventured to differ from my predecessors, by considering atten- 
tively all works written in mediaeval England, no matter in 
what language, and by comparing them with similar Con- 
tinental productions. I have tried always to keep in mind the 
peculiar historical conditions which make familiarity with Old 
French literature necessary to an understanding of almost every- 
thing in the Middle English vernacular. 

In order to counteract any confusion that a division of the 
matter according to its nature might occasion, I have appended a 
chronological table of all documents mentioned in the text, with 
as accurate a statement as is now possible of the dialect in which 
they were written. The extant manuscripts of mediaeval works 
are so various, and show so much revision and transformation, 



PREFACE ix 

that in many cases it is extremely difficult, in some cases quite 
impossible, to determine either the age or the place of their original 
composition. Because of the uncertainty of our knowledge in 
this respect, and from the fact that it is the substance rather than 
the form of mediaeval thought that is most valuable and interest- 
ing to us now, such details are of much less importance, even to 
the specialist, than at any other period of our literature ; and the 
average reader may neglect them with equanimity. For the con- 
venience of those who may desire to prosecute further studies in 
this field, I have appended also a considerable body of biblio- 
graphical notes, which will serve as a guide to the best editions 
of the works discussed, arranged according to the same divisions 
that appear in the text. In the preparation of these appendices, 
which have caused no small amount of labour, I have had the 
advantage of competent assistance from Miss Muriel B. Carr and 
Mr. H. N. MacCracken, graduate students of Radcliffe College 
and Harvard University respectively, which assistance I would 
here gratefully acknowledge. 

This book was undertaken with the warm encouragement of 
my revered master Gaston Paris, and follows in general outline 
the plan of his indispensable history of Old French literature. It 
is the fruit of studies begun under the inspiration of the late 
Professor Child, whom all of us his Harvard disciples hold in loving 
memory. And it has been brought to an end with the constant 
help of my former teacher and present colleague, Professor 
Kittredge, whose vast erudition, keen intelligence, and unfailing 
generosity astonish most those who know him best. Professor 
Charles Eliot Norton and others of my friends -have done me the 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



favour to read portions of the book in proof, and have made 
valuable criticisms upon it. To them, one and all, I offer 
publicly my hearty thanks. Finally, I may say that I should 
perhaps never have written a volume like this at all had not the 
suggestion come from that high-minded and brilliant scholar, the 
Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, to whom the whole of the early period 
in this series was at first assigned, and who was prevented only 
by ill-health from treating it throughout with distinction. 



W. H. S. 



INTRODUCTION 



awakening of national life. The people were suddenly inspired 
by a new vision of a greater future. They united in a common 
hope. Sooner than is generally believed, the Saxon element lost 
its initial hostility to the new-comers, the bonds of sympathy grow- 
ing with the realisation that the fortunes of both races were 
indissolubly knit, that all were anxious to maintain the dignity 
and integrity of the land. From the consequent blending of blood 
came a generation of increased power. From the incitement of 
opportunity came impulses to work. Capable and eager, the 
youth of the, country strove for distinction; and reward was 
yielded richly to those who had the wisdom to seek it aright. 
Success, it was evident, lay not in harking back to a past from 
which the people was definitely severed, but in seizing the advan- 
tages of the present and reaching forward to those seemingly still 
more abundant in store. As a result of the Battle of Hastings, 
England was finally removed from isolation, and impelled into 
the strong currents of international life. The Anglo-Normans, 
possessed as they were of enthusiasm, energy, and executive skill, 
vied successfully with their Continental kin, and stirred their 
fellow-countrymen to like achievement. Literature could not 
but profit by the new sense of security and enlargement of view. 
The Conquerors not only brought with them soldiers and artisans 
and traders, they quickly imported scholars to revive knowledge, 
chroniclers to record memorable events, minstrels to celebrate 
victories, or sing of adventure and love. These gained a hearing 
and a following. Learning flourished anew, and writers multiplied. 
The most obvious change in literary expression appears in 
the vehicle employed. For centuries Latin had been more or less 
spoken and written by the clergy in England. The Conquest, 
which led to the reinvigoration of the monasteries and the 
tightening of the ties with Rome, determined its more extensive 
use. Still more important, as a result of foreign sentiment in 
court and castle, it caused writings in the English vernacular to 
be disregarded, and established French as the natural speech 
of the cultivated and high-born. The clergy insisted on the use 



INTRODUCTION 



of Latin, the nobility on the use of French : no one of influence 
saw the utility of English as a means of perpetuating thought, 
and for nearly three centuries very few works not deliberately 
devised for the ignorant laity appeared in the native vulgar tongue. 

Those, meanwhile, who controlled the destinies of the king- 
dom, fought its battles, administered its laws, organised its 
churches, founded its schools, and worked otherwise for its 
welfare — all with one accord encouraged the vogue of French 
fashions without feeling that they did amiss. Thus not only the 
bias of prevailing attitude, but the stamp of English style, was 
incalculably changed. When the English language finally became 
supreme in England, it was employed primarily to perpetuate 
conceptions and methods of writing originally French. In process 
of time the foreign types, like the foreign words in the vocabulary, 
were accepted by high and low without demur. 

To appreciate properly the significance of this substitution of 
foreign for native styles, the new trend of literary inclination that 
began soon after the Conquest, we must consider that in the 
early Middle Ages France was the literary centre of all Western 
Europe. Then, more than at any other period, she enjoyed an 
hegemony in the intellectual domain, and led the fashion in 
literary production. The epoch was one of new birth — of new 
trials and new successes. In every departure France seems to 
have anticipated the slower thought of other nations and dis- 
covered the paths which they later found it best to tread. She 
devised and others imitated. She set the standard, and by it 
all were measured. Surpassing any degree of influence to which 
she has since attained, her dominion was widespread and 
unquestioned. Fortunately, it was* at this period, when the 
French genius appears effectively to have controlled Western 
ideas, that England was in closest contact with France. By 
reason of their language and political conditions, Englishmen 
were kept familiar with all contemporary thought. Their reading 
was substantially that of the rest of Europe. 

If France was thus the supreme arbiter of European 



INTRODUCTION 



literary styles, it was in part at least because the French 
writers were themselves cosmopolitan, because they were not 
provincial in sympathy or inhospitable to others' ideas. They 
had inherited, to be sure, a large body of epic verse concerning , 
Charlemagne and his peers which was peculiarly theirs, and this 
they revived with zeal ; so well, in fact, that, national as it was, 
foreign races repeated it readily and long. But they were not 
content to win admiration in this special province alone. Early 
they sought out other themes — stories of the Orient, of Greece 
and Rome, and ancient Britain — and so transformed these as to 
win still greater acclaim. One of the chief glories of Old French 
literature is the body of Arthurian romance which it presented 
to the world. But Arthur was originally a Celtic, not a French 
hero. The " Matter of Britain," which, through the medium of 
French redactions, was made accessible to all Europe and 
welcomed with rejoicing wherever it found its way, was a splendid 
contribution of France ; but it was not hers by right of inherit- 
ance. The great poets of mediaeval Germany, Hartmann von 
Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and 
the rest, were essentially imitators of French writers, but imitated 
them, it should be noted, where they were themselves imitators — 
imitated works which were French not in substance but in form. 

Partly owing to this situation, the distinctive characteristics 
of the literatures of different lands were in the Middle Ages far 
less marked than now. The various peoples of Europe had not 
as yet developed the striking peculiarities they at present exhibit. 
There was a general harmony of poetic impulse. Men every- 
where sang under the same inspiration, and enjoyed one 
another's song. Their themes being usually such as came from 
an indistinct past ; being in nowise more the possession of one 
race than another, nation did not rise up against nation to assert 
exclusive claims. In all lands primitive myth, Aryan folklore, 
the fables of remote ages, were handled with the freedom of 
acknowledged right, without a thought of dispute. Yet thus, 
in this handling, race distinctions gradually made themselves 



INTRODUCTION 



manifest, and in course of time so fixed themselves upon the 
outcome of human thought that they assumed an appearance 
of their own, and were recognised as peculiar by common 
consent. 

The interdependence" of the different literatures of mediaeval 
Europe is a matter of much moment in the study of any one of 
them. It makes the comparative method of inquiry essential to 
safe judgment. Middle English literature cannot be well under- 
stood without full familiarity with the sources from which it 
drew and some acquaintance with the history of the themes it 
favoured. It but echoes in the main the sentiments and tastes 
of an international society centralised in France. 

Another striking characteristic of mediaeval literature worth 
consideration at this point is its general anonymity. Of the many 
who wrote, the names of but few are recorded, and of the history 
of these few we have only the most meagre details. Nor is this 
a simple accident. Formerly, the importance attached to an 
author's personality was far less than now. In case either of a 
narrative or a didactic work, it was the substance above all that 
attracted attention. Originality of matter was deplored as a 
fault. Independence of treatment meant to our forefathers 
contempt of authority, a heinous offence in their eyes. It was 
as unsafe for a story-teller to depart from the well-marked lines 
of inherited tradition as for him to disregard orthodox beliefs. 
And even the greatest dared not present new views without at 
least claiming august support. A prudent author sought a 
powerful patron in order to ensure success, or fathered his 
inventions on some ancient worthy who could not deny them. 
But the last thing he would have deemed wise would have been 
to copyright them as his own. 

Necessarily, then, most composition was impersonal. Rarely 
do popular mediaeval works seem to have been called forth by the 
inner, the subjective feelings of their authors. They indicate 
prevailing ideals, tastes, or needs, but seldom the peculiar aspira- 
tions of an individual. We scrutinise them not so much to 



INTRODUCTION 



discover the genius of particular men as the development of 
types ; not so much to find out the qualities of him who wrote 
as those of the society that suggested the writing. 



II 

If now we inquire regarding that part of the Middle Ages in 
England which we are particularly to study, as a critic should 
in questioning any epoch : Who are the best exponents of its 
tastes and ideals ? who most notably reflect its conditions ? 
we discover that our concern is chiefly with representatives of 
the nobility and the clergy. The third "estate," the labourers, 
were not then producers of literature. They have, indeed, signifi- 
cance in our research, but almost solely because they perpetu- 
ated tradition. Poor and down-trodden, ignorant and illiterate, 
they were, nevertheless, the heirs of much ancient lore which 
delighted them worthily, and which, because of their retentive 
memories, reaches us even to-day, preserved in songs, ballads, and 
popular tales, still powerful to please when our jaded ears refuse to 
listen to the fine sophistications of the hour. The English folk 
always responded in song to tense emotional appeal. They were 
stirred to unified utterance by such local or national events as 
touched their hearts. They sang, we know, of Hereward, the 
valiant resister of the Conqueror's might, and of other outlawed 
heroes who strove against oppression. They sang of private griefs. 
And this, we may be sure, without ever ceasing, though historical 
records but rarely note their festival or funeral chants. From 
the Conquest to Chaucer, as indeed before and after, the com- 
bined dance and song of rustic folk was a conspicuous feature 
of English wayfaring life. The Battle of Bannockburn (13 14) 
found the steadfast nation in the same mood as the Battle of 
Maldon (991). "After many days," says Fabyan, "it was sungyn 
in dances, in carolles of the maydens and mynstrellys of Scotland." 
Simple and sincere, the ballads of the people kept issuing forth 
from the living well-springs of poetic impulse, but for the most 



INTRODUCTION 



part only to vanish again, like " the snows of yester year," leaving 
no definite trace. Literature as literature (except for the ballads) 
owes only a slight debt to the peasants, and we dismiss them 
from our more particular heed. 

One fact, however, deserves emphasis here, namely, that 
in former times the tastes of the different ranks of society 
were not so unlike in character as in quality, that the lower 
classes enjoyed the same sort of literature as the nobility, only 
in a ruder form. When versions of sophisticated tales were 
prepared by men of humble origin for the lowly of the land, 
they were stripped of their polite embellishments and made 
straightforward and direct in style. The people were fond of 
sentiment but not of subtlety, of vigorous phrase but not of 
rhetoric, of proverbs rather than laboured conceits. They 
preferred narrative to disquisition, folklore to science. They 
liked to hear of princes and noble ladies when these were found 
to act according to homely ideals. They eagerly repeated tales 
of heroism and adventure when they could applaud with under- 
standing. Thus, unconsciously, merely by the nature of their 
tastes, they determined the selection of works to be turned 
into the vernacular, as well as the fashion of their reproduction. 
Popular literature in the native tongue assumed a definite, demo- 
cratic attitude and a rugged simplicity during the long period 
of its disregard by the nobility. When the rulers finally realised 
its richness and took an interest in its cultivation, it had passed 
beyond any narrow control, it had become English in the large 
sense of the word, a mirror of the whole nation's spirit and 
sensibility. 

The patrons and producers of mediaeval works, as has been 
said, belonged almost exclusively to the clergy and the nobles. 
In patronage credit seems about equal so far as amount of 
writing is concerned, but unequal if the estimate be based on 
its lasting worth. The didactic and religious works favoured 
by the monks were in the main far less original and less 
artistically valuable than the lays and romances especially 



INTRODUCTION 



prepared for knights and ladies. Still, ecclesiastical and 
secular works were read by both classes alike. The nobles 
were frequently pious and learned, and priests as often frivolous 
and dense. The former kept clerks engaged at service in their 
castles, and the latter had minstrels regularly in their employ. 
Most writers, moreover, made a general appeal. The monks 
tried to produce legends and chronicles so interesting as to 
rival secular poems in popularity. The minstrels adorned the 
heathen narratives they treated with Christian sentiment, and 
found it expedient to point a moral in their loosest tales. 

The Conquest had been the signal for a large increase in 
the number of castles and monasteries. These existed along- 
side of one another in all parts of the land. By the time of 
Stephen the embattled keeps of the feudal barons were so 
prominent everywhere that they threatened the power of the 
central government, and it was arranged by the treaty of 
Wallingford in 1153 that no less than 365 of them were to 
be destroyed — an agreement in part performed. Each knightly 
abode was a stimulus to literary production, for the residents 
felt the need of constant entertainment, and listened eagerly 
to invigorating stories of war and chivalry, or to such free tales 
as provoked unrestrained mirth when in the great hall after 
meat high and low enjoyed glee together. As gentleness and 
refinement increased, the nobles delighted more in the new 
courtly lays than in the communal epic songs of their past. 
The ladies they "served" became a literary force, and exerted 
their influence to procure poems embodying their conceptions, 
to gain a means of solace in the loneliness they were forced to 
endure when war called their husbands and lovers away. 

Religious foundations likewise prospered abundantly in the 
new era. If in Pope Gregory's time Christian monks had gone 
to Britain say " threescore and ten persons," the Lord had made 
them almost "as the stars of heaven for multitude." Unlike, 
however, the mighty God of Israel whom they worshipped in 
name, "they regarded persons and took reward." Steadily, 



INTRODUCTION 



therefore, they grew in wealth and worldly influence, until they 
became independent enough to dictate the sovereign's procedure, 
so strong as often to determine national policy. From the time 
of William the Conqueror to the accession of Henry III. (1216), 
according to Tanner, no less than 476 abbeys and priories were 
founded, besides 81 alien priories. Each of these was more 
or less a place of learning, many in the sense that there youths 
were given elementary instruction, as well as in that there also 
scholars prosecuted advanced inquiries in history and theology, 
and studied minutely the writings of the past. 

The chief reproach of the monks, apart from their sensuality, 
was that they had too much of the "knowledge that puffeth 
up," and too little of "the charity that edifieth." It was to 
renew the spiritual vigour of the Church that order followed order 
in earnest foundation. But each in turn departed from the high 
principles of its builders, and the members neglected their 
devotions as their power increased. In n 70 the "holy athlete" 
St. Dominic was born ; twelve years later the noble St. Francis, 
" all seraphic in zeal " ; and each emulating the other strove 
in his own way for the purification of the ministry and the 
uplifting of his fellow-men. The Dominican friars came to 
England in 1220, the Franciscans in 1224. Their new organisa- 
tions, marvellously successful at first, numbered among their 
adherents some of the leaders of English thought — Bishop 
Grosseteste, for example, and Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and 
William of Ockham. Yet once again success occasioned danger, 
and power to be exerted acted as a magnetic attraction to self- 
seeking men. The friars, it is well known, soon degenerated 
sadly, and by Chaucer's time their name even was a title to 
scorn. Throughout this whole period, however, despite the 
worldly lapses of the clergy, the monasteries and other religious 
foundations were the chief centres of civilisation, where the 
study of art, architecture, and music was encouraged, where 
books were collected, and scribes industriously wrote. Never, 
even in their days of greatest spiritual apathy, were the monks 



INTRODUCTION 



wholly unfaithful to the ideals they professed. Always alongside 
of the lax and vicious were to be found the pure in heart and 
undefiled in deed. The amazing contrasts characteristic of the 
Middle Ages confront us here as everywhere : those who renounced 
the world became its guides, those who broke loose from the fetters 
of society were enslaved by cramping rules and creeds. 

Outside of the cloisters, other servants of the Church laboured 
to the advantage of the people. Simple parish priests taught 
their flocks nobly by both precept and example, but only 
occasionally, did any of the class, like Layamon, engage in 
literary work. Only in one instance, that of Richard Rolle, 
in the fourteenth century, do we find a hermit prolific as 
an author. But there was a large body of secular clergy who 
are most important to consider because of their relation to 
literature. The Church afforded the most convenient, at first 
almost the sole, means of gaining intellectual advancement. It 
included individuals of all stations in its ranks. Ambitious 
nobles of thoughtful spirit sought distinction through ecclesi- 
astical preferment. The poor entered the clerical fold humbly, 
to free themselves from manual labour. There were large 
numbers of clerks who were untrammelled by the restrictions 
of the monks, and in the production of popular original works 
they played the chief part of all who wrote. Many of them had 
no great education, but they knew more of the world than most 
of their fellows. From wide travel and long sojourning in 
literary centres, they often attained to genuine enlightenment, 
and were an important factor in public progress. 

Paris was the Mecca of the mediaeval clerk. At its world- 
renowned university assembled students from remote regions, 
and there lived together in broadening, if sometimes tumultuous 
and sorry, conditions. The scholars were grouped into so-called 
"nations," men from definite districts flocking by themselves 
in habitation, but associating freely in lecture hall and public 
meeting. The English "nation" was one of the largest in the 
city, and harboured students from Scandinavia and Germany. 



INTRODUCTION 



In the twelfth century the University of Paris was a place of 
fine stimulation, a meeting -ground of distinguished men, an 
exalted mart of thought. Crestien de Troyes reveals to us at 
the beginning of Cliges the opinion of the learned of his land 
that France had inherited the best traditions of antiquity. 
" This our books have taught us," he says, " that of chivalry 
and of clergy [i.e. learning] Greece had the highest praise. 
Afterwards to Rome came chivalry ; and the height of clergy, 
which now hath passed to France. God grant that it here 
be retained, and the place please it so well that from France 
may never depart the honour which there has tarried. To 
others God had lent it ; for of Greeks and Romans is said 
neither more nor less ; of them has mention ceased, and 
extinguished is their vivid flame." With conscious dignity the 
clerks of Crestien's time wore the mantle of superiority which 
had, they thought, fallen upon them. Eagerly they strove 
not only to express in their own speech new ideas, but also 
to revive knowledge of the past, to reopen the treasure-house 
of forgotten wisdom, and to reveal its glories for the benefit 
of their own people. The widespread revival of interest in the 
past restored the study of the classics, and a genuine renaissance 
of antique culture got well under way. But the Church retarded 
its flowering time. True learning and illumination yielded to 
didacticism and prejudice. The University of Paris became 
eventually a place of subtle dialectics and sententious dispute, 
rather than of free, original thought. 

In the thirteenth century, however, Paris was still in English 
esteem the focus of Western culture. Witness the words of 
Bartholomew, the English encyclopaedist : 

In the same manner as the city of Athens shone in former days as the 
mother of liberal arts and the muse of philosophers ... so in our times 
Paris has raised the standard of learning and civilisation not only in France, 
but in all the rest of Europe, and, as the mother of wisdom, she welcomes 
guests from all parts of the world, supplies all their wants, and subjects them 
to her pacific rule. 



INTRODUCTION 13 



Considerably later, in 1345, the renowned bibliophile 
Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham, indulged in a like 
panegyric : 

O Holy God of Gods in Sion, what a mighty stream of pleasure made 
glad our hearts whenever we had leisure to visit Paris, the paradise of the 
world, and to linger there, where the days seemed ever few for the greatness 
of our love ! 

But Richard had new conditions to remark that were im- 
portant for English development. 

Alas ! he exclaims, by the same disease which we are deploring [the 
lack of earnest devotion to study] we see that the Palladium of Paris has been 
carried off in these sad times of ours, wherein the zeal of that noble university, 
whose rays once shed light into every corner of the world, has grown luke- 
warm, nay, is all but frozen. There the pen of every scribe is now at rest ; 
generations of books no longer succeed each other ; and there is none who 
begins to take place as a new author. They wrap up their doctrines in un- 
skilled discourse, and are losing all propriety of logic, except that our English 
subtleties, which they denounce in public, are the subject of their furtive 
vigils. 

Admirable Minerva seems to bend her course to all nations of the earth, 
and reaches from end to end mightily, that she may reveal herself to all man- 
kind. We see that she has already visited the Indians, the Babylonians, the 
Egyptians and Greeks, the Arabs and the Romans. . . . Now she has passed 
by Paris, and now has happily come to Britain, the most noble of islands, nay, 
rather a microcosm in itself, that she may show herself a debtor both to the 
Greeks and to the barbarians. At which wondrous sight it is conceived by 
most men that as philosophy is now lukewarm in France, so her soldiery is 
unmanned and languishing. 

There was much to warrant this boast. It was no longer 
necessary for Englishmen to cross the Channel for a good 
education. Oxford meanwhile and Cambridge had grown from 
preparatory schools for the University of Paris to dignified rivals. 
In England, in fact, early in the fourteenth century were to be 
found the intellectual compeers of any scholars in Europe, men 
of independence and virility, earnest in the search for truth. 

Our concern here, however, is less with the clerks as scholars 



i 4 INTRODUCTION 



than as men of letters. Some in petty official positions simply 
pursued the duties of their place, or did hack-work for their 
superiors. Some wrote more happily with higher patronage. 
Others, as it were free lances in society, wielded satirical, caustic 
pens, and frankly denounced or ridiculed whomsoever they would. 
The most cultivated of the clerks, men of the type of Crestien de 
Troyes and his fellow trouveres, strove deliberately for distinction 
of thought and grace of style. They craved an audience, and 
made their works as accessible as they could to " gentle readers." 
In various ways their poems might be published. The author 
himself no doubt would read them to select gatherings, as Froissart 
later is known to have done with his compositions. The knight's 
priest would repeat them privately to his master or the youths 
under his instruction, and cloistered monks perhaps to their 
fellows. Ladies-in-waiting would divert their mistresses while 
they sat embroidering, as Cressida's companion amused her by 
the Romance of Thebes before Pandarus appeared on his delicate 
mission. Sometimes books of great length would be gone 
through in serial reading night after night with a whole house- 
hold assembled, or shorter poems recited on special occasions, 
by such as were skilled in the art. 

Wide popularity a poem was slow to gain because of the 
difficulties of manuscript reproduction. The scriptorium yielded 
its fruit reluctantly. Only the fortunate could obtain copies of 
works they desired, and even the rich and powerful had but a 
small number in their possession. Sometimes, it seems, a single 
codex formed the whole library of a family, and was carefully 
cherished, slowly added to, and solemnly bequeathed from one 
generation to another. The so-called Auchinleck MS., written 
between 1330 and 1340, serves admirably to illustrate what such 
a volume might have been, how miscellaneous was the pro- 
duction of Middle English poetry, what sort of works were once 
thought of edifying import. 

This beautifully written and illuminated parchment, now in 
the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, contains over forty distinct 



INTRODUCTION 15 



pieces, many short or fragmentary, others of great length. In 
disordered juxtaposition may there be found a number of legends 
of the Virgin and various saints, a vision of purgatory, bits of 
Bible history, and paraphrases of Scripture texts, a didactic 
treatise on the Seven Deadly Sins, a Debate between the Body 
and the Soul, a Dispute between a Thrush and a Nightingale 
respecting women, and a fragment in their praise, a lone fabliau 
" How a Merchant did his Wife betray," a chronicle of the kings 
of England, a list of names of Norman barons, and two satires on 
political conditions in the reign of Edward II. But the bulk is 
romance, and this of every provenience. The Carlovingian cycle 
is represented by the poems of Roland and Vernagu and Otuel ; 
the Arthurian by the Breton lays of Le Freine, Sir Orfeo, Sir 
Degare, and the romances of Sir Tristram and Arthur and 
Merlin ; English traditions by those of Guy of Warwick and his 
son Heinbrun, by Beves of Hampton and Horn Child ; the matter 
of the East by an account of Alexander, and the originally Greek 
story of Flores and Blancheflour ; together with the legendary 
romance of Amis and Amiloun and the Oriental collection of 
tales known as the Seven Wise Masters. Surely such a manu- 
script could afford pleasure to men in any mood, whatever their 
literary predilection. In the Library of Lincoln Cathedral is 
preserved a similar book written by a Yorkshireman, Robert 
Thornton, almost exactly a century later, which contains an 
equally miscellaneous but quite different collection of documents 
dealing with history, romance, religion, and medicine, though 
religion is the most prominent. The medley does certainly 
appear to us incongruous, but, as the editor of the romances in 
the manuscript observes : 

At a time when the library of the University of Oxford is said to have 
contained no more than two or three hundred chained books, a folio volume 
which could afford amusement in hall, instruction at other times, religious 
information, and perhaps consolation to the sick, and with all be produced as 
a medical 'authority for nearly every ill " that flesh is heir to," was not to be 
despised by a family resident in a remote part of the country, where, in all 
probability, literary luxuries were not readily accessible. 



16 * INTRODUCTION 



These two manuscripts seem to have been carefully prepared 
volumes of selected poetry for the use of readers, and not simply 
the written repertoires of professional reciters. They contain, 
along with commonplace productions by minstrel rhymers, 
works by careful trouveres, composed with the thrill of con- 
scious art. 

The type of mediaeval trouvere may be said to have found its 
distinguished culmination in Chaucer. In one sense also he was 
a troubadour in that he, in a style reminiscent of the sophisticated 
lyrics of Provence, wrote intricate love-poetry for an esoteric cult. 
But he was so far removed from the ordinary minstrel of his time 
that he could parody the latter's methods with complete success. 
The style of writer, however, whom Sir Thopas presupposes was 
the degenerate scion of a noble house. The early minstrels were 
very important personages, and we must pay particular heed to 
them if we would get a proper picture of mediaeval literary life. 



Ill 

On their arrival in England the Normans came into contact with 
singers of Celtic, Saxon, and Danish race, who were looked up 
to with respect. Among the Celts, above all, the bards were dis- 
tinguished. The noblest aspired to win fame in this way, and 
kings deemed musical skill their finest ornament. In the Anglo- 
Saxon realm also, music and song were worthy pursuits. Even 
bishops, such as St. Aldhelm of Salisbury (f 709) and St. Dunstan 
of Canterbury (f 988), took delight in the harp. The Scandinavian 
skalds and thulir were men of great prominence, both honoured 
jmd feared by the chieftains they served. 

After the Conquest, however, the popular poets and gleemen 
of previous times were more and more dismissed to obscurity, and 
their places were taken by minstrels of a new sort. We are not 
here concerned with the infinite number of jugglers, tumblers, 
contortionists, and mountebanks who congregated at places of 
assembly and entertained spectators by circus tricks ; but rather 



INTRODUCTION 



with those more self-respecting persons whose lives were devoted 
primarily to singing songs and making music, to reciting legends, 
romances, and tales. These were the connecting links of all 
classes of society. They were as various in their cultivation and 
ambitions as theatrical troupes or journalists to-day. Some 
appealed especially to the higher classes, some to the lower. 
Some were proud of occupying places of established dignity at 
court, castle, or monastery. Some revelled in a free, Bohemian 
life, and journeyed constantly from one place to another. Some 
enjoyed so fully the largess of munificent patrons that they could 
occupy estates of their own, or found hospitals from the fortunes 
they amassed. Some, unkempt and tattered, sang in the market- 
place, the ale-house, or the kitchen of the manor, for a charitable 
pittance. Some were as careless in style and unreliable in statement 
as others were fastidious and exact. The minstrels were as unlike 
in attitude and esteem as Organ-grinders and street singers to-day 
differ from orchestral players and opera stars, or as the performers 
in cheap variety shows from the accomplished actors of our stage. 
They formed a class of society far more important than any that 
partly corresponds to them now, for they were poets, singers, 
musicians, actors, and reporters all combined. The best amongst 
them were subject to the temptations of our contemporaries so 
engaged. They wrote nattering works and advanced causes for 
mere monetary reward ; they accepted bribes to praise officials who 
desired laudation in political crises ; they pandered to sensuality, 
and encouraged luxury and display. The lower orders were more 
obviously vulgar. In personal character they were as often as not 
dissolute and corrupt, in speech irreverent and obscene. 

What attitude the Church should adopt towards the minstrels 
was a troublesome question. From the earliest days of the 
Christian era, mirth -makers were under grave suspicion. 
Repeatedly enactments were directed against them. St. Augus- 
tine declared that generosity to minstrels was a fault; Alcuin 
urged caution in offering them hospitality. And such warnings 
grew increasingly numerous as their possible corrupting influences 

c 



18 INTRODUCTION 



became more manifest. But their popularity never diminished, 
and the clergy in England saw fit to make distinctions in favour 
of the better sort, while they earnestly denounced the baser. 
Bishop Grosseteste was one of the most strenuous in upholding 
the traditional opinion of the Church towards the class in general, 
and yet, according to Robert of Brunne, he was himself devoted 
to minstrelsy : 

He loved much to hear the harp, 
For man's wit it maketh sharp. 
Next his chamber, beside his study, 
His harper's chamber was fast thereby. 
Many times, by nights and days, 
He had solace of notes and lays. 

When asked the reason why he had delight in minstrelsy, 
why he held the harper dear, Grosseteste defended himself by the 
example of David, who by harping worshipped the Heavenly King. 
The minstrels themselves met the attacks upon them by the rela- 
tion of many instances in which members of their class had been 
openly favoured by the Holy Virgin, whose cult they zealously 
maintained. Of a harper of Rochester, for example, they related 
a pious legend how, when once blown from a bridge by the wind, 
he called to Mary for aid. Without danger, ever playing his 
harp, he was borne in the lap of the waves gently ashore. Even 
so in Herodotus' story the harper Arion of Methymna was saved 
by a dolphin when obliged to leap from his ship. We are 
reminded likewise of what is said to have been the practice of 
both St. Aldhelm and St. Francis of Assisi, when in gleemen's attire 
they stood on bridges and sang carmina trivialia to attract the 
attention of passers-by, to whom they afterwards appealed to 
better their lives. 

The clergy changed their tactics when they found that open 
war waged against the minstrels was ineffective. They deter- 
mined to meet them on their own ground. In a French collec- 
tion of Miracles of the Virgin the author indicates clearly the 
course the wise pursued : 



INTRODUCTION 



Li home de jolifte 

Ki tant aiment lur volente, 

Amereint milz autre escrit 

Ke cuntast amerus delit, 

U bataille, u altre aventure, 

En tels escriz mettent lur cure. 

Tes escriz ne sunt a defendre, 

Car grant sens i poet Ten aprendre, 

De curteisie e de saveir. 

However, he urges that they ought not to hold poems of this 
kind in so much esteem as to neglect more pious subjects, such 
as those of which he was himself to treat. That much ecclesias- 
tical literature was produced in the hope of winning the laity 
from the allurements of worldly minstrelsy to the contemplation 
of pious things, to "bring our lusty folk to holynesse," is a fact 
of peculiar interest in the history of literature. It deserves 
consideration, moreover, in studying the influence of chivalric 
symbolism on mediaeval Christian allegory. 

In the early fourteenth century minstrels were to be found in 
every noble's household, as well as at the royal court. The more 
honourable kind were organised into unions. They had their 
kings and other officials, were paid according to their skill, wore 
badges of their profession, and were sensible of their dignity. 
They went about from one place to another, to serve munici- 
palities at entertainments in guildhalls, or the clergy at religious 
celebrations in cathedrals or cloisters ; they were assembled in 
large numbers at every proud marriage or lordly festival ; they 
accompanied monarchs in travel, managed tournaments, arranged 
spectacles and plays, recorded events. They were indispensable 
to every one. 

Apparently it was the opinion of all that Adam Davy (11312) 
expressed : 

Meny it is in hall to hear the harp, 
The minstrels sing, the jugglers carp. 

And it was only a question then (as now concerning the stage) 



INTRODUCTION 



how to control the vicious tendencies that arose. Langland, 
aware of all, was content to point out one conspicuous danger 
of the minstrels' popularity : 

Clerks and knights welcome king's minstrels 

And for love of their lords list to them at feasts ; 

Much more me thinketh rich men ought 

Have beggars before them, which be God's minstrels. 

Chaucer let his parson point out that many a man gave to the 
minstrels for vainglory, "for to beren his renoun in the world." 
But in the House of Fame he saw 

alle maner of minstrales 
And gestiours that tellen tale's 
Both of weping and of game ; 

and undoubtedly, as a typical man of his age, he found delight 
in such society. 

But Chaucer and his more prominent fellow-writers of the 
fourteenth century — the author of The Pearl, Gower, and Langland 
■ — mark the beginning of a new era in poetic attitude. Lawrence 
Minot, in the time of Edward III., wrote as a minstrel of political 
events ; Richard Rolle was minstrel-like in many of his religious 
pieces ; Barbour glorified Robert Bruce in the minstrel style. It 
was evident, however, to the clear-sighted before 1400 that the 
dignity of minstrelsy was doomed. In the fifteenth century it 
steadily degenerated, and after the invention of printing was quite 
out of date. Finally, in the sixteenth century, were written these 
significant words : 

When Jesus went to Jairus' house 
(Whose daughter was about to die), 
He turned the minstrels out of doors, 
Among the rascal company : 
Beggars they are with one consent, 
And rogues by Act of Parliament. 

Long, to be sure, minstrel-singing lingered in remote parts 
among the uneducated and obscure. Yet no more could it be 



INTRODUCTION 



regarded seriously as art, and he who collected with so much zeal 
the remains on the Scottish Border, could only lament "old 
customs changed, old manners gone." 

It is, however, more just and profitable for us to dwell on the 
period of the flourishing than of the decadence of the minstrel's 
work. How often we hear of kings who acclaim the bard for 
having harped away their grievous discomfort. How alluring the 
scene in the banquet-hall when the richly-robed singer, instrument 
in hand, delights the gay company before the blazing fire with his 
plaintive or stirring melodies. No less inspiriting is the thought 
of warriors marching to victory, like the Normans at Hastings, 
with a jongleur to lead them in triumphant song, of Crusaders and 
pilgrims helped by story-telling to bear the fatigues of travel, of 
the common folk lightened of their burdens by jovial tales that 
united them in fellowship. All sorts and conditions of men were 
made happier by the minstrels and their mirth. 

The minstrel-poets of mediaeval England unified the people 
by providing them with a common fund of enjoyment, a common 
sort of information, a common ideal of honour and truth, a 
common basis of religious belief. They did more. They 
communicated to them the best sentiment of other nations as 
manifested in their conceptions of heroes and saints. They 
contributed abundantly, like the Church, to make the whole 
world kin. 

IV 

In a famous picture by Giorgione the chief stimulating 
forces of all mediaeval Europe seem symbolically portrayed. 
On either side of a pyramidal throne rising in triple stage to a 
high seat, where the Virgin sits with the Saviour in her arms, 
stand two men, St. Liberalis and St. Francis, in different attire, 
but with similar noble mien. The one, clad in resplendent 
armour and supporting the banner of the Cross, depicts the 
glory of chivalry ; the other, in the sober costume of a monk, 
but with earnest eyes and pleading hands that speak out exhorta- 



INTRODUCTION 



tion and self-sacrificing zeal, depicts the ecstasy of the faith. 
Between yet above them, gazing with tenderness and sweet joy 
on her babe, the Redeemer of the world, sits the Holy Mother 
in serenity. She is the mistress, the friend of both. Love 
for her, and trust in her Son, who together beseech mercy for 
all at the throne of God, form the inspiration of their high 
endeavour. Alike, we see, the active and the contemplative 
life were supported by eternal aspiration. Chivalry and faith, the 
foundation principles most characteristic of nobility in the Middle 
Ages, like liberty and truth to-day, were based on a common 
sentiment of dutiful love. Both manifest themselves permanently 
in admirable art. 

The Old French romances are the glory of chivalry, as 
Gothic cathedrals of Catholic worship. Both witness to the lofty 
idealism of the mediaeval world and embody materially its spiritual 
vision. Whether the knights in actual life were always as high- 
minded as the exemplars they chose, whether the monks were 
always worthy of their calling, it is not for us to inquire. The 
ordinary run of men have always lived on a low level. But that 
era is not desolate when ideals are kept prominent by common 
consent, when it is admitted by all to be the better part to follow 
where they lead. 

In architecture, it is clear, the genius of the age found its 
most surpassing expression. There most beautifully and impres- 
sively the ideals of the time were exhibited. But the same faith, 
the same stirrings actuated the written monuments. The result 
is less satisfying only because less finished. The artists were 
too negligent, too impatient, too unrestrained. Their work is 
marred by oddities and crudities that more solicitude for perfect 
form might have removed. Mediaeval literature lacks repose, 
dignity, comeliness. It is prone to exaggerations and incon- 
gruities, to repetitions and irrelevancies. And yet it is so fired 
by imagination, so sweetly, delightfully fresh, so elementally poetic, 
that it has proved a permanent awakening force. 

Why, we ask, this rough incompleteness in poems when 



INTRODUCTION 23 



cathedrals are so finished and fine? Perhaps the best men 
did not give themselves up to literature, since there were so 
many other ways of imaginative achievement. Intellectual 
giants devoted abundant energy to the construction of systems 
of theology, carefully reasoned and most subtle, to the successful 
administration of vast enterprises, to the harmonious control 
of masses of men. Possibly the external conditions of book- 
making also worked to Jhe disadvantage of literary art. The 
slow methods of reproduction, the difficulties of rapid reading, 
the serial style of rendition, militated against proportion and 
unity. Scribes, we know, interpolated, combined, transformed 
at will. Redactors often " improved " until the original design 
was obscured. Theirs surely is the discredit of confusing many 
a clear narrative, of making turbid many a poet's thought. 
Had we mediaeval works as they left their writers' hands, had 
we all they wrote, our estimate of their merit might be quite 
different. Aucassin et Nicolete, Gawain and the Green Knight, 
The Pearl, and other conspicuously artistic works are but acci- 
dentally preserved in unique manuscripts. Very few more would 
be required to overthrow entirely the impression of dulness 
and disorder that the numerous didactic documents and the 
utilitarian compilations and encyclopaedias so piously multiplied 
have left on the superficial inquirer. The existence of Beowulf 
has modified critical strictures on Anglo-Saxon verse. The 
poetic Edda glorifies the early Norse. The Mabinogion redeems 
the ¥ literature of the Welsh. Yet only chance has saved these 
precious works. And satisfaction for their preservation but 
intensifies our sadness for the irrevocably gone. A just estimate 
of mediaeval literature is now impossible. We generalise as best 
we can from insufficient evidence. We can only hope that our 
judgments are not far astray. 

Before beginning the study of Middle English literature, the 
reader should set aside two wrong notions that he may perhaps 
have. First, that men were in the past fundamentally unlike 
what they are now. They were not. Their emotions, impulses, 



24 INTRODUCTION 



occupations, and all else that went to make them men, were 
in general no more different from ours than in particular ours 
are from those of our fellows about us. The services of certain 
departed poets and critics in calling attention to the Middle 
Ages have been much diminished by the fantastic ideas of 
the epoch that they have established in people's minds. The 
time was not one of weird glamour and mystery, of ever-present 
romance and miracle. Dragons did not beset every traveller, 
nor enchanting damsels wait at every cross-roads to be ravished 
or relieved. A few who defied the Church suffered no torture- 
pangs. Occasionally men lived humdrum lives from birth to 
death. In truth, we have had more than enough of foolish 
fancy concerning the Middle Ages. Painstaking inquiry has 
at last substituted fact for fiction. We see with more and more 
distinctness that people formerly were no happier or unhappier, 
no brighter or duller, than we ourselves. Life now is a varie- 
gated fabric as it was then. Only the patterns differ, and the 
loom is a complicated machine. More poetic, indeed, than 
ours, the mediaeval world may be called, because of its constant 
surprises, its bewildering contrasts, its spontaneity, its uncritical 
freedom. Literature reflects all this ; it reflects, moreover, the 
credulity, the naivete, the puerilities of the time. But it reveals 
men as they were, as real human beings, actuated like us by 
divergent motives, controlled by warring hopes and fears. 

Furthermore, customs and tastes were not persistently the 
same. To most men, as Pater remarked, the age is "an all- 
embracing confusion." Study, however, shows one century 
developing naturally out of another. From the barbarity of the 
dark ages to the affectations of the pre-Renaissance epoch is a 
long but steady progression. Only gradually are rude warriors 
transformed into chivalrous knights, and ladies exalted in influence. 
Only slowly does increasing luxury refine manners, travel broaden 
thought, enlightenment accompany progress in science and 
art. Literature advances only little by little in the same course. 
Works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are very dissimilar 



INTRODUCTION 25 



from those of the fourteenth and fifteenth. The Romance of 
the Rose is a far cry from the Song of Roland, Chaucer's 
tales from Layamon's Brut. There is no uniformity in poetic 
product throughout the Middle Ages. No one is wise enough 
to characterise them by a phrase or a formula. Only the 
ignorant treat them as all alike. Mediseval literature, though 
mainly static in type, is variable in spirit. Within the scope of 
persistent modes of style, it reflects the changing thoughts of 
successive generations, who differed in vision according to the 
light of their day. 



In the present work, the chronological method of presentation 
has been adopted within strict limits. For the sake of clearness, 
and to avoid needless repetition, one type of English literature 
after another, in suitable order, will be traced in its evolution. 
First will be treated Anglo-Latin, then Anglo-French, produc- 
tions ; afterwards, in detail, all extant English works within our 
period that for any reason merit an historian's notice. These 
last, it is evident, should not be considered by themselves, but, 
so far as space will permit, in connection with their sources 
and sequence, which often lend them their main interest. 



CHAPTER II 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



Whatever might be said of the " Britons " before the Conquest, 
certainly as concerns the attitude of those after it, the following 
words of Pope are quite beside the mark : 

But we brave Britons foreign laws despised, 
And lived unconquered and uncivilised. 
Fierce for the liberties of art, and bold, 
We still defied the Romans as of old. 

It is true, as Pope says, that throughout the mediaeval period 
" critic learning flourished most in France " ; but it is also true 
that then some of the greatest " critics " of France were born 
or lived in England, and that criticism in Latin and French was 
almost too strictly heeded in the development of English art. 
Deference to " foreign laws " was advantageous perhaps to 
English civilisation ; but it tethered the styles of native writers 
so narrowly as to deprive their originality of free play for several 
hundred years. 

The reckoning of Rome was keen. Alexander II. justified 
the Conqueror's claim to Edward's throne and won thereby 
rich reward. As a result of the Normans' success in battle, 
the political power of the Holy Church militant was vastly 
increased in England, and her sway over both public and 
private opinion more firmly established than before. This was 
26 



chap. II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 27 

a condition of great moment in its effect upon the develop- 
ment of English literature. 

Before the Conquest the attitude of English ecclesiastics 
towards the vernacular was most friendly : it was regarded as 
an important occupation of learned men to popularise clerical 
knowledge in familiar speech. But solicitude for the education of 
the Saxon element of the population was not a glory of Norman 
ecclesiastical rule. Those of the clergy who might have con- 
tinued to minister to the people by writing in their own tongue 
were discouraged from doing so by the indifference of superiors 
in office, and devoted themselves to more scholarly production. 
Here and there, to be sure, the Chronicle was maintained 
by conservative patriots; but the foreign primates, wishing to 
eradicate the enthusiasm for old England which they saw was 
cherished in the abbeys, placed outsiders in control of them, 
and rewarded those only who furthered the ambitions of the 
World Church. Rome had constituted herself definitely into a 
nation apart, a nation without barriers of language or race, num- 
bering her subjects everywhere, and making confident claim to 
their supreme regard. Her hope was to bring about uniformity 
of sentiment and service throughout Christendom. Thanks 
largely to her power, the mediaeval period is the most cosmo- 
politan of English history. 

"Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for 
our learning." And, without question, if a student would get 
more than an oblique view of the culture of mediaeval England, 
and understand adequately the circumstances then potent in 
literary incentive, he must not neglect to acquaint himself with 
the writings then most prized — those, namely, in Latin. Such 
prominent writer's of the nineteenth century as Carlyle, Arnold, 
Ruskin, Pater, Newman, as well as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, 
Mill, and others of their class, had they lived in the twelfth or 
thirteenth centuries (and men of equal powers lived then), would 
undoubtedly have written in Latin. Furthermore, they would 
probably have spoken Latin with natural ease. Their serious 



28 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

studies would all have been of Latin books, and the Latin 
classics would have been more familiar to them than writings 
of their own time and land. 

Anglo - Latin writings differ markedly from those in the 
vernaculars of the same epoch in point of form, subject, and 
authorship. While Anglo-French and Middle -English works 
are for the most part in verse, the bulk of Anglo-Latin literature 
is prose. While the most interesting documents in both ver- 
naculars are romances, which found but slight original treatment 
in Latin, no truly significant work of theology, philosophy, 
history, law, literary criticism, or natural science was first 
composed in either vulgar tongue. While the name of no great 
English poet from the mediaeval period before Chaucer can be 
mentioned, the number of Anglo-Latin writers whose names are 
still worthily conspicuous is so large as to give reason for national 
pride. 

The literature of every people is a growth, more or less 
steady ; but its chief formative influences at any particular period 
are more likely to be exerted by contemporaneous production in 
countries of kindred spirit than by what was earlier written in 
the same land. Certainly, to form an estimate of mediaeval 
works, concurrent world-movements deserve more careful con- 
sideration than divergent national inheritance. We must seek, 
then, to discover the collateral forces, as well as the continuous 
tendencies, which struggled with one another in the Middle Ages, 
and finally yielded, as a compromise, our modern English style. 

To that end, the period we are studying may be divided into 
four successive ages, corresponding roughly to the eleventh, twelfth, 
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and may be denominated 
according to the most striking aspects of intellectuality then 
apparent : the age of monasticism, the age of feudalism, the age 
of scholasticism, the age of nationalism — the ages, if one will 
take representative Latin writers, of Lanfranc and Anselm ; of 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, John of Salisbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, 



ir ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 29 

and Walter Map ; of Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Duns 
Scotus ; of William of Ockham, Richard of Bury, and John 
Wycliffe. The twelfth century is the flourishing period of 
original Anglo-Latin and Anglo-French composition, the fourteenth 
that of original composition in the native tongue. In the former 
no one of station was disposed to write English ; before the end 
of the latter both Latin and French in England had fallen into 
comparative disuse. 

I 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that great monument of our 
nation's history, which fortunately was continued by monks of 
Peterborough for nearly a hundred years after the Conquest, 
reveals the sentiments of the native population towards William I. 
in the following significant words : 

The King William about whom we speak was a very wise man, and very 
powerful, more dignified and strong than any of his predecessors were. He 
was mild to the good men who loved God ; and over all measure severe to 
the men who gainsaid his will. On that same stead on which God granted 
him that he might subdue England, he reared a noble monastery, and there 
placed monks, and well endowed it. In his days was the noble monastery at 
Canterbury built, and also very many others over all England. This land 
was also plentifully supplied with monks, and they lived their lives after the 
rule of St. Benedict. And in his days Christianity was such that every man 
who would followed what belonged to his condition. 

But there was another aspect of William's administration of 
which the chronicler felt bound also to speak. 

Certainly, he adds, there was much hardship in this time, and very great 
distress. He caused castles to be built and oppressed the poor. . . . The 
rich complained, and the poor murmured ; but he was so sturdy that he 
recked nought of them. They must follow wholly the king's will, if they 
would live, or have land, or property, or even his peace. 

Under such conditions as are indicated in this last passage, 
there could have been but feeble incentive to writing in the 
English vernacular ; and, naturally enough, the period directly 



30 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

succeeding the Conquest is marked by lassitude in literary effort 
on the part of the people. So far as the native English were 
concerned, the eleventh century was an age of retrospect. 

The author of the Latin Life of Hereward states regarding a 
certain monk Leofric, who chronicled the deeds of Hereward's 
youth, that it was his custom to gather and write down in English 
" omnes actus gigantum et bellatorum ex fabulis antiquorum aut 
ex fideli relatione, ad edificationem audientium." Leofric's works, 
however, are completely lost, together with nearly everything else 
that would enable us to judge by direct evidence of the quality 
of the secular poetry of the time. We know, nevertheless, that 
there must have been in circulation a large body of popular lyrics 
as well as tales of giants and warriors. In a history of Ely, for 
example, it is related how King Cnut, when proceeding one day 
by boat to keep the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin at the 
little church by the Ouse, heard from a distance the song of the 
monks, and bade his boatmen row slowly that all might attentively 
listen ; how, further, in memory of the event, he himself com- 
posed a poem beginning : 

Merry sang the monks in Ely 
When Cnut the King rowed by. 
Row, knights, near the land, 
And hear ye the monks' song. 

Which poem, the chronicler asserts, was still, when he wrote in 
the twelfth century, " sung and remembered in proverbs." Like- 
wise, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, the splendid 
ceremonies attendant on the marriage of Cnut's daughter Gunhild 
to King Henry of Germany, in 1036, were commemorated long 
afterwards by plain people singing "in the highways." The Latin 
Lives of Edward the Confessor, King Harold, and Hereward 
betray the existence of similar ballads on happenings of general 
interest. Such productions were no doubt in the main short and 
artless. But there appear to have been others which were longer 
and more ambitious in scope. From the eleventh century prob- 
ably date the Anglo-Saxon originals of the Anglo-Norman poems 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 31 

on Waltheof, Aelof, Horn, Havelok, Guy of Warwick, Beves of 
Hampton, perhaps Tristram, and other heroes of manly character. 
These tales of native warriors were perpetuated by the Normans 
for the same reason that they preserved the chansons de geste of 
Charlemagne and his peers, because they were stimulating to 
courage and piety, as well as conducive to mirth. " Above all 
men," says Thomas Stephens, " the Norman was an imitator and 
therefore an improver ; and it was precisely because he was the 
least rigid, most supple, plastic, and accommodating of mortals, 
that he became the civiliser and ruler wherever he was thrown. 
. . . Wherever his neighbours invented or possessed anything 
worthy of admiration, the sharp, inquisitive Norman poked his 
aquiline nose. . . . The Norman was a practical plagiarist. 
Wherever what we now call the march of intellect advanced, 
there was the sharp, eager face of the Norman in the van." 

In the Norman era the two great moving impulses were war 
and religion, and consequently the characteristic literature of the 
period was heroic and pious. The narratives that were then 
chiefly favoured by the laity were epic irt temper; the religious 
works that most appealed to them were lives of saints. Single- 
eyed zeal pervades the whole literary product of the time. It 
was the age of monasticism. 

By virtue of the monks' labour, it was also an age of record. 
Then were written by native scribes precious manuscripts of 
earlier works, such as the codex of Beowulf; while, with similar 
disheartening outlook for new composition, Irishmen were putting 
into shape the most valuable of extant documents in their own 
ancient tongue, the famous Leabhar na h-Uidre (Book of the 
Dun Cow), the Book of Leinster, and the Book of Hymns. The 
English were looking backward when they sadly continued the 
chronicle of their independent past, while contemporary Normans 
and Icelanders, in preparing the Doomsday Book (1086) and the 
Landndmabbk (Book of Settlements, c. mo), were inspired by 
a glowing vision of the future. The new guides of culture in 
England were luminaries of learning from the South. 



32 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

With Lanfranc, who was anointed Archbishop of Canterbury 
in 1070, begins the line of great Churchmen who after the Con- 
quest wielded immense power in that see. An Italian of noble 
birth, early trained in the study of law, led by ambition into the 
Church, a man of acumen, eloquence, and learning, he was in his 
time one of the most learned scholars, and one of the most 
capable prelates, in Europe. Lanfranc established a new standard 
of scholarship in England. He was " the father and protector of 
monks," according to the Chronicle, but he tolerated among 
them no such complacent ignorance as had previously existed. 
He stiffened their discipline, made them ashamed of their 
parochialism, stimulated their desire for wide knowledge of 
affairs, and incited them to fondness for fine architecture and 
beautiful books. He assumed his office with the sincere desire 
to benefit England, and though he was always viewed by his 
countrymen as a foreigner, he himself wrote " we English " and 
" our island " to men abroad. He was as patriotic as the Con- 
queror, equally energetic and keen, similarly strong as an 
administrator and master of men. 

Lanfranc died in 1089, and, four years after, William Rufus, 
yielding at last to much urging, chose the noble Anselm to fill his 
place. Also a well-born Italian, Anselm had been Lanfranc's 
pupil at Bee and had succeeded him there as prior in 1063. He 
had been Abbot of Bee some fifteen years when he unwillingly 
accepted the English archbishopric and entered upon a period of 
anxious, but yet, as he deemed, necessary dispute. Both as a 
man and as a thinker Anselm was Lanfranc's superior. In 
character more spiritual and humble, he was in intellect more 
penetrating and profound. " Penitus sanctus, anxie doctus," 
William of Malmesbury called him ; in Dante's Vision he occupied 
a place in paradise " among the spirits of light and power in the 
sphere of.the sun." Strangely belated was the honour paid to his 
memory when he was canonised in 1494. 

Lanfranc's writings, like those of many an early thinker, 
appear incommensurate with his reputation. We have a book 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 33 

of his letters, certain commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul, 
and a body of decreta for the use of the English Benedictine 
monks ; we know also that he took pains to correct the English 
manuscripts of the Church Fathers and the Scriptures, which had 
been sadly disfigured. But the work of his that gave him most 
renown was his Liber Scintillarum, De Corpore et Sanguine 
Domini Nostri, written about 1079 in England to oppose the 
heterodox views of his former friend Berengar on the doctrine of 
transubstantiation. In comparison with these, the writings of 
Anselm assume a magnified distinction. Of his three most 
important treatises only one, the Cur Deus Homo, was under- 
taken (in 1089) in England, and it was finished in Italy. The 
Monologion and Proslogion, on which his fame chiefly depends, 
were composed in the quiet of Bee. The Cur Deus Homo is in 
the form of a dialogue between the author and the Abbot of Bee, 
and was planned to prove the necessity of the Redemption. The 
Monologion and Proslogion are elaborate treatises on God, His 
existence, nature, and attributes. In the former the author 
follows an inductive chain of argument, in the latter he develops 
a single deduction. Anselm's fundamental assumption is ex- 
pressed in the words " neque enim quaero intelligere, ut credam ; 
sed credo ut intelligam." Starting from a basis of faith, he 
strove (like Descartes six hundred years later) to prove that pure 
reason substantiated the convictions thence derived. His method 
of argumentation is Platonic, in contrast to the Aristotelian which 
was coming to be more frequently employed. In applying it, 
Anselm shows himself a clear-headed, cogent thinker, bold in 
speculation and honest in purpose. His many other works con- 
firm the general impression of him as a man of genius. His 
controversial treatises on the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, Original 
Sin, the Contempt of Temporal Things, and the like, evince 
unusual skill in dialectics. His meditations, prayers, homilies, 
and very numerous letters reveal the human tenderness and 
spiritual fervour of an uplifted nature. It was of great con- 
sequence to the clergy of England to have at their head for 

D_ 



34 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

sixteen years a man of irreproachable character, and one of the 
most distinguished metaphysicians of Europe. The styles of 
religious and didactic literature which he and Lanfranc adopted, 
were cultivated with varying emphasis and success by all ecclesi- 
astics who during the next three centuries became eminent for 
learning and piety. 

Among other writers of the same period were Osbern, a 
native of Canterbury, and superior of the monastery there, who 
translated several lives of English saints from Anglo-Saxon 
into Latin ; and the Norman Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury 
(Chancellor from 1072 to -1078, employed on the Doomsday 
Survey, noted as a collector and binder of books), who also 
engaged in the same pious task of writing saints' lives. Hagio- 
graphy was, in fact, a common occupation of the monks, pro- 
secuted by many with indiscriminate zeal. Yet, since then 
in England ecclesiastical and political history amounted to much 
the same thing, such records often illumine the actualities of 
contemporary conditions. It is so, for example, with the works 
of Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury (jr. n 24), to whom we are 
indebted for a life of Anselm, his intimate friend, as well as for 
lives of the earlier English saints, Dunstan, Bregwin, and Oswald. 
Likewise in his Historia Nbvorum, a history of England from the 
Conquest to 1122, Eadmer occupied himself for the most part 
with the doings of the archbishops of his see. He was a man of 
good sense, and deserves commendation for his effort to avoid 
the absurd in legend and miracle, as well as for his lucidity 
of thought and his transparent style. 



II 

Chronicles, however, were throughout the Middle Ages the 
most valuable product of the monasteries, and as such it will not 
be amiss to consider them here together, especially since they 
are closely connected with one another by the identity of a large 
part of their contents and the rigid conventionality of their 



it ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 35 

method. They hardly deserve to be dignified by the name of 
"histories," for their authors give but little evidence of large 
perspective, careful discrimination between fact and fiction, or 
philosophic generalisation. They lack the high distinction 
of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, which for over three cen- 
turies had remained without a peer. But they are our chief 
sources of information regarding the period, and some of them 
perpetuate folklore and fables of great significance to the 
student of poetry. The interest of students in these documents 
is sometimes strikingly diverse. The historian of events estimates 
highly compilations of facts that the historian of literature de- 
liberately ignores ; while, on the contrary, the former sometimes 
vehemently denounces imaginative narratives which the latter 
eagerly applauds. 

Among cloister chroniclers of the beginning of the twelfth 
century may be mentioned Florence of Worcester and Simeon of 
Durham, of both of whom but little is known. Florence (f 11 18) 
based his Chronicon ex Chronicis on the work of the Irish monk 
Marianus Scotus, which ends with 1082, gathering other material 
from Bede, Asser, and some lost version of the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle. His work was afterwards twice continued, to 1141 
and to 1295. Simeon's book (written between 1104 and 110S) 
is mainly an account of the church of Durham, valuable not for 
its style, but for information elsewhere inaccessible. 

The son of a married priest, and a native of Shropshire, 
Ordericus Vitalis (1075-^. 1142) wrote at St. Evroult in Nor- 
mandy an extensive Ecclesiastical History from the year 1 a.d. 
to 1 141, which, with all its lack of system and method, is particu- 
larly important for its account of English and Norman events 
from the Conquest on. Ordericus maintains that "the litigious 
quarrels of bishops and the bloody conflicts of princes furnish 
more abundant materials for the writers of history than the pro- 
positions of theologians or the privations or prodigies of ascetics " 
— a truly significant change of view ! Another son of a married 
priest, Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon (f c. n 55), produced 



36 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

an Historia Anglorum (beginning 55 B.C.), which was five times 
revised between 11 30 and 1154, and, though neither very accurate 
nor original, long remained a standard work. Henry was brought 
up in the house of Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, where he asso- 
ciated with princes and young noblemen in the charge of his 
patron, and there developed a talent for writing secular verse, in 
which he attained considerable distinction. His natural tastes 
did not lead him to persevere in the drudgery necessary to a 
trustworthy historian, and he in no wise surpasses the other 
eclectic chroniclers of his time. Likewise a priest's son, and 
educated in the company of courtiers, was St. Ailred, the holy 
Cistercian abbot of Rievaulx (1109-1166), an intimate friend of 
both King David of Scotland and his son. His chief historical 
works were a Genealogy of the Kings of England, an account 
of the Battle of the Standard (1138), and Lives of St. Cuthbert 
and St. Edward the Confessor. He also wrote many homilies, 
epistles, and religious treatises, among them a dialogue De 
Spiriiuall Amkitia, suggested by Cicero. 

More distinguished as an historian than any of these writers 
by reason of his careful accumulation and presentation of facts, 
his pictorial power, and his elegant style, William of Malmesbury 
(f c. 1 142) stands conspicuous. His chief work is a De Gestis 
Regum Anglorum (a.d. 449-1127), but he also wrote Historiae 
Novel 'lae (11 25-1 142), several lives of English bishops and saints, 
and a history of Glastonbury. Green ranks William as "the 
leader of a new historic school who treat English events as part 
of the history of the world, and emulate classic models by a 
more philosophic arrangement of their materials.". William was 
doubtless the better able to understand conflicting race-tendencies 
and to judge without prejudice because, like Henry of Huntingdon, 
he was of mixed English and Norman blood, that excellent 
strain which proved so helpful in the upbuilding of the new 
nation. His History is not alone valuable for the facts it con- 
tains, but perhaps more for its literary form. William was not 
sternly scientific. He enlivened his narrative with amusing tales, 






ii ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 37 

not always relevant, and he was ever ready to make use of 
popular songs. With the " idle tales of the Britons " regarding 
Arthur he was familiar, but he thought Arthur "deserved to be 
celebrated not in the dreams of fallacious fable, but in true 
history." William tells us that he should be ashamed to com- 
pile annals after the manner of the Chronicle. No arid state- 
ments for him, no dull pages of mere unembellished record ! He 
and men of his type aimed at something more profound and 
illuminating than anything that had before been attempted in 
England. Taking the old Roman historians as models, they 
strove for dignity and elegance, yet not always prudently. The 
preposterous speech-making of warriors in crises of action, the 
high-flown rhetoric, the bombast of some ancient histories, they 
unwisely revived. And to these they added other faults. True, 
some were able to discriminate and organise better than others, 
but even the best were too respectful of authority, too timid in 
rejecting unsubstantiated tradition, too fond of popular etymology 
and classical quotations, too ready to accept miraculous inter- 
pretations of physical phenomena, too unscientific in considering 
cause and effect. They were men of their time. 

So interrelated are the works of mediaeval chronographers and 
historiographers that it is often difficult to determine the original 
contribution of each. But for one large section of their works 
all who wrote after n 36 had a unique ultimate source. For the 
history of the early Britons, every English chronicler who treated 
that theme relied more or less confidently on the disclosures of 
one of the most brilliant of literary impostors, Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth, whose His toria Regum Britanniae was by far the most 
permanently influential literary product of the time. Geoffrey 
was a Welshman by blood, a nephew of Uchtryd, Archdeacon of 
Llandaff. Probably he was born at Monmouth and reared in 
the Benedictine priory founded there by William I. At all 
events, early in life he was brought into connection with Norman 
nobles, and was educated mainly in Latin and French as one of 
them. In 1140 he inherited his uncle's position of Archdeacon, 



38 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

but was not made a priest until a few days prior to his appoint- 
ment as Bishop of St. Asaph's, and he did not visit his see before 
his death, in 1154. His History appeared about 1156, with 
a dedication to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of 
Henry I., and the Maecenas of the time. Previously he had 
written a separate tract on the Prophecies of Merlin. 

Gifted with keen intelligence and wit, Geoffrey was alert to 
divine the public desire, and executed with surprising success 
a daring scheme, which it required a master mind even to plan. 
Aware of the curiosity of the Normans regarding the past of the 
country with which they had identified themselves, he conceived 
the idea of writing a complete history of early Britain, which 
should exalt into splendour the achievements of his own ambitious 
but afflicted race. Taking material from native traditions, current 
European fables, and classical narratives, he wove together an 
amazing tissue of subtle fabrication, and exhibited this his own 
creation as a genuine antique. The better to arouse credence, 
he gave out that he had discovered an ancient book in the British 
tongue which contained all the information he advanced, and 
pretended to no credit but that of an exact translator. For the 
truth of his assertions he called to witness the venerable Walter, 
Archdeacon of Oxford (his part in the deception we find it hard to 
comprehend), and proceeded with all dignity, with elaborate show 
of precision, to unfold a sober record of would-be facts. There 
was no link lacking in Geoffrey's chain of history from the time 
when the Trojan Brutus set foot on the shores of Albion and 
drove out the giant aborigines of the land to the era of the Saxon 
invasions. Most knowingly he traced the career of the illustrious 
Arthur, and with such convincing power, that he may truly be said 
to have contributed more than any other individual to making 
eternal that monarch's renown. A few contemporary scholars 
uttered their indignation at his flagrant overriding of the truth, 
but their protests passed unheeded. Geoffrey pictured the 
history of the land as the people wished it to be, and they 
cherished belief that so subtly ministered to their self-respect. 



ii ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 39 

The new History won immediate fame. It became a subject of 
common talk. It was translated over and over again. Its 
statements were reproduced in all sorts of learned documents. 
It exerted for many centuries a power both on literature and on 
life. Without this work not only Arthur but also Merlin would 
have been far less potent a name to conjure with, and the stories 
of Lear, Cymbeline, Ferrex and Porrex, Gorboduc, Sabrina, and 
Locrine would probably never have become familiar to English 
ears. The best poetic history of Britain in the vernacular, 
Layamon's Brut, is but a redaction of it. If, as he first planned, 
Milton had written his great epic on a national theme, he would 
have followed Geoffrey's lead. 

The way in which Geoffrey's epoch-making work was received 
by the enlightened of his time is exhibited by the witty tale of a 
contemporary and fellow-countryman, Gerald de Barri, better 
known as Giraldus Cambrensis. 

A certain Melerius, writes Gerald, having always an extraordinary 
familiarity with unclean spirits, by seeing them, knowing them, talking with 
them, and calling each by his proper name, was enabled through their assist- 
ance to foretell future events. . . . He knew when any one spoke falsely in 
his presence, for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting on the 
tongue of the liar. If the evil spirits oppressed him too much, the Gospel of 
St. John was laid on his bosom, when like birds they immediately vanished 
away. But when that book was removed, and the History of the Britons by 
Geoffrey Arthur, for the sake of experiment, substituted in its stead, they 
settled in far greater numbers and for a much longer time than usual, not only 
upon his entire body but on the book that was placed upon it. 

Amusing, indeed, and justified ! Yet Gerald's complacent 
remarks about his own works would have been more prophetic 
if applied to these fables he scorned : " They will be read by 
posterity although they offend men of the present generation ; 
and though carped at now, will be profitable in future times." 

Gerald is perhaps the most picturesque figure of his century- 
mercurial, fiery, and vain, yet earnest, original, and energetic ; 
a handsome, well-informed, witty, and fearless man, who 
took delight in struggle and brought much good to pass. 



40 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

His mother was kin to the princes of South Wales, his father 
a Norman baron. Born about 1147, at the Castle of Manorbier, 
Pembrokeshire (which was in his opinion "the pleasantest 
spot in Wales "), given his first education by the Bishop of 
St. David's, at the age of twenty he went to Paris to pursue his 
studies, and afterwards lectured there on rhetoric and literature. 
In 1 1 72 he returned to England full of the zeal of a reformer, 
and set to work with an unconquerable will to improve conditions 
in Wales. His chief hope was to become Bishop of St. David's, 
which he wished to restore to the dignity of a metropolitan see ; 
but, though twice chosen to that office by the canons, his election 
was refused by the reigning kings, who feared to put so vigorous 
a partisan of Welsh independence in so powerful a position. In 
1 184, however, Henry II. made him one of his chaplains, and 
in 1 185 he was bidden attend the young Prince John on his 
fruitless expedition to Ireland. He and the great justiciar, 
Ranulph de Glanville, accompanied Bishop Baldwin when he 
preached the third Crusade in Wales. Together they two also 
attended King Henry in France, and were probably present 
at his decease. When Richard left England, Gerald was made 
coadjutor with William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, to 
administer the kingdom. Yet, though thus always close to 
the throne, Gerald never attained any much coveted distinction, 
and he had reason in later years to speak with resentment of 
the way his superiors had rewarded his service. He died, 
about 1223, after a period of great quiet in contrast with his 
earlier years of dispute and litigation. " Many and great wars," 
said a Prince of Powys, " have we Welshmen waged with England, 
but none so great and fierce as he who fought the King and the 
Archbishop, and withstood the might of the whole clergy and 
people of England, for the honour of Wales." 

Gerald's works are of various kinds, but all of genuine 
interest. His Topography of Ireland and History of the Conquest 
of Ireland were the result of his own wide-eyed travel there, 
the latter especially evincing an unusual intelligence and power 



n ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 41 

of quick observation. Though not without faults of supercilious- 
ness and over-credulity, these works are in the main impartial 
and frank. From both much useful information concerning 
the social customs and beliefs of the ancient Irish can still be 
obtained. The Topogi'aphy was published in 1187 in unique 
fashion : Gerald read it in public at Oxford, in parts, on three 
successive days, securing an audience each day by giving them 
a sumptuous feast; on the first day he entertained the poor 
of the town, on the second the teachers and most advanced 
students, on the third the other students, the citizens, and the 
soldiers of the place. He himself speaks eloquently of this 
magnificent event, which he declares was worthy of the classic 
ages of antiquity, nothing comparable having ever been 
witnessed in England. Gerald's ostentation was naive. In 
one place he tells of the way he attracted large audiences of 
doctors and scholars at Paris, because they were " charmed by 
the sweetness of his voice, the beauty of his language, and the 
force of his arguments." He thought it worth while to prepare 
an autobiography, and collected into one book his letters, poems, 
speeches, and prefaces. He also wrote a Description of Wales 
(in verse), and a Gemma Ecclesiastica, or book of instruction 
for the Welsh clergy, both of them vigorous and entertaining. 
The latter, the author's favourite work, he presented to Pope 
Innocent III. It is extant in a unique manuscript. 

A special mark of enlightenment in Gerald was his con- 
sciousness of the fact that he might have done well to write 
in French rather than in Latin (it never occurred to him, of 
course, to write in English) ; and his style shows exceptional 
freedom from pedantry. He was a wholly different person from 
the ordinary dullard who merely recorded facts. 

Though chronicles, as has been said, remain throughout 
the mediaeval period the most valuable literary work of the 
monasteries, a large part of the best historical writing in 
the twelfth century is not due to monks. Then, indeed, a 
truly remarkable set of men, interested in tracing the progress 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



of events, were themselves conspicuous in public life. Notable 
are the Welsh trio, Geoffrey, Gerald, and keenest of all, a writer 
of whom we shall presently treat, Walter Map — all archdeacons, 
brilliant secular clerks, well-read, much-travelled, open-minded, 
not scornful or afraid of the ways of the world. It was of no 
small advantage to them to be companions of princes and 
associates of statesmen, themselves engaged in making the 
history of their age. Boldness and freedom characterise their 
expression of opinion, which, moreover, was less musty than 
that of cloister growth. 

In the last quarter of the century flourished several historians 
deserving mention, such as "Benedict of Peterborough," William 
of Newburgh (f c. 1198), Roger of Hoveden (f 1201), and 
Ralph of Diceto (f c. 1202). The chronicle ascribed to 
Benedict (f 1193) deals primarily with events from n 70 to 
1 192, and is the most authentic record of Henry II.'s reign. 
The fact that the author had access to public records and State 
papers, and often reproduced them, gives his book peculiar 
value. William, Canon of the Austin priory at Newburgh, York- 
shire, is specially exalted by modern historians because of his 
sensible discrimination and sober judgment, as well as for the 
elegance and vigour of his style. Freeman's overdrawn remark 
that he is "the father of historical criticism" was due in part 
at least to William's attitude towards Geoffrey's fabrications. 

A certain writer, says William, has come up in our times to wipe out 
the blots on the Britons, weaving together ridiculous figments about them, 
and raising them with impudent vanity high above the virtue of the 
Macedonians and the Romans. This man is named Geoffrey, and has 
the by-name of Arthur, because, laying on the colour of Latin speech, he 
disguised with the honest name of history the fables about Arthur taken 
from the old tales of the Britons with increase of his own. 

A remarkably true statement of the case, we must admit, and 
William's indignation against Geoffrey was more righteous, because 
more necessary, than that of historians to-day. Roger of Hoveden 
(Howden, Yorkshire) was another layman who profited by his 



n ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 43 

secular life. He enjoyed personal association with Henry II. 
and Richard I., and was a Justice Itinerant of the Forests in 
1 1 89. What he wrote of events from 1192 to 1201 has alone 
independent value. Roger began at 732. But still more 
bold was Ralph of Diceto, Dean of St. Paul's, London, who 
was willing to start at the Creation, from which indefinite 
epoch his Imagines, or " Outlines " of History, followed the 
supposed course of events down to his own time, the record 
before 1188 being naturally mere compilation and now valueless. 

In contrast with these all-embracing works, three of lesser 
size, but of more curious interest, deserve mention : the De 
Rebus Gestis Ricardi Primi (1189-92), by Richard of Devizes, 
a monk of St. Swithin's, Winchester, which is an entertaining 
account of Richard's brilliant career abroad and of what 
happened at home during his absence; the Chronica (1173- 
1203) of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund's, by Jocelyn of 
Brakeland, which throws much light on the interests and 
occupations of mediaeval monks, and, it will be remembered, 
inspired Carlyle's Past and Present; and the Otia Imperialia of 
Gervase of Tilbury (Essex), in the main a miscellany of current 
fables and superstitions, which was compiled, c. 121 1, for the 
entertainment of the German Emperor Otho IV. (a descendant 
of Henry II. 's mother Matilda), through whose favour Gervase 
was made marshal of the kingdom of Aries. 

These writers bring us to the threshold of the thirteenth 
century, when monastic annalists are again supreme, and gradually 
deteriorate in style and importance. For clearness, we follow 
their course rapidly to the end. Henceforth the abbeys afford 
the best chronicles of the realm, and above all the old 
Benedictine houses. Among the reformed orders of monks 
only the Cistercian Ralph of Coggeshall (t c. 1227) is prominent; 
and only a few friars, such as the Oxford teachers Trivet \ 

(11328) and Eccleston (ft. 1260), ever gained eminence in 
this direction, the former for his Annates Sex Regum Angliae 
(1135-1307), the latter for his history of the Franciscans in 



44 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

England from 1224 to 1250. Of monastic writers, some confined 
themselves to the history of their particular foundations, others 
introduced into their works matters of larger concern, while a 
third class, more ambitious, strove to compass all the move- 
ments of the time. 

It was at St. Albans that the most valuable chronicles of 
the last sort appeared. A genuine school of history nourished 
there, meriting special attention because its product offers 
the most reliable and complete survey of events from about 
1200 to 1450. Lanfranc had first definitely established the 
scriptorium at St. Albans, providing the monks with abundant 
manuscripts to copy. The preeminent distinction in historio- 
graphy that this abbey finally won amongst others — which even 
surpassed that of St. Denis in France — was due to its nearness 
to London, and to its position on one of the great highroads of 
travel, as well as to the custom that had established itself of 
making its library a special repository of all valuable State 
documents, where they might be permanently preserved and 
consulted in cases of disputed authority. 

Utilising as a nucleus the book of the abbot John de Cella, 
Roger of Wendover (f 1236) produced a Flores Historiaru/n, 
which follows the course of events from the Creation to 1235, 
and, though not aiming at originality, in its later parts has much 
merit. This work was revised and continued to 1259 by Roger's 
successor, the greatest of the St. Albans, perhaps of all early 
English, historiographers — Matthew Paris, who is still highly 
esteemed for his picturesque style, large perspective, and sane 
judgment. His Chronica Major a was more than a local, or 
even a national record. He dealt with large politics, and was 
cosmopolitan in his survey. He buttressed his opinions by the 
evidence of definite enactment, and introduced into his book 
many papal bulls, royal letters, and other documents of great 
historical value. He was himself on intimate terms with 
Henry III. and an eye-witness of various important events of 
which he tells. Yet his attitude is usually impartial, and he has 



n ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 45 

the courage to express whatever convictions his observation and 
intelligence declared right. Various recensions of his Chronica 
soon appeared, and it was continued by the successive historio- 
graphers at his abbey — by Rishanger, for example, to 1306, by 
Trokelowe to 1323, by Blaneford to 1324, finally by Thomas of 
Walsingham (Norfolk) from 1377 to 1422. Walsingham treats 
at length of Wycliffe and the Lollards, with whom he had no 
sympathy, and he evinces great chagrin at the attitude of Oxford, 
his alma mater, towards these heretics. From him, however, we get 
important light on the revolt in thought and act in Chaucer's time. 

Other chronicles were written in the fourteenth century by 
such canons as Walter of Hemingburgh, of Gisburn in Yorkshire 
(f after 1300); Adam Murimuth of St. Paul's, London (f 1347); 
and Henry Knighton, of St. Mary's, Leicester (f c. 1366). 
Knighton's work was continued from 1377 to 1395 by a par- 
tisan of the Duke of Lancaster, but a bitter opponent of Wycliffe, 
and in this form is one of the most valuable histories of the 
period. For our present purpose the Latin chronicles of the 
fifteenth century are insignificant. 

We take leave of the historians with a word about the 
Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, a monk of St. Werburgh's, 
Chester (f c. 1364). This " chronicle of many ages "deals with 
much more than annals. It is a sum of generally accepted 
knowledge on universal geography, history, and science — a whole 
Encyclopedia Britannica in orderly arrangement. Although it 
contained nothing really original, it was an extremely useful 
compendium of what then passed for fact, and one is not aston- 
ished at its surpassing popularity. It circulated in hundreds 
of copies, and, after the printing press was established, in various 
editions. Special interest attaches to it as the first historical 
work since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was accessible in 
English prose. It was translated by John of Treves (Trevisa) 
in 1387, and once again, in the fifteenth century. Caxton 
printed John of Treves' translation in 1482, and this long 
remained a standard work. 



46 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE Cha?. 

One cannot consider this extensive historical production, 
much of it mechanical and dull, and all in commonplace Latin, 
without contrasting it with the wonderful sagas of contem- 
porary Northerners, happily composed by them in the vernacular 
of their land. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries form the golden 
age of Old Norse prose, and Iceland was then as preeminent for 
history as England for the drama in the reign of Elizabeth. In 
no other tongue of mediaeval Europe do we find historical works 
at all comparable with those in Norse for naturalness, picturesque- 
ness, fidelity to fact, vigour, or variety. Here is no affectation, 
no bookishness, no archaism of method or style ; but all is vivid, 
graphic, real. Over and over again one can read these "prose 
epics " of warrior kings and proud freemen, of heroic men and • 
women, whose individuality is made plain, and ever one's wonder 
grows at the literary power their authors display. It is sad to 
think that something similar might have been accomplished by 
Englishmen of the same period had the learned not felt obliged 
to write in a foreign tongue. Ordinary Middle English prose 
lacks the muscularity of the Norse as well as the brilliance of 
the Welsh and the lucidity of the French of the period. It 
exhibits few of the sturdy qualities that made Anglo-Saxon prose 
so admirable. And all because Latin had been adopted as the 
dignified medium to express the thought of cultivated men. The 
almost complete abandonment of the use of English by native 
historians for three hundred years and more seems to us now 
hardly less than a literary disaster. 



Ill 

The twelfth century was an age of universal awakening, of 
large rivalries, of stimulating activity — an age of enlightening 
travel, of prosperous social conditions, of noble architecture — an 
independent, idealistic, aristocratic age — the age of "fredom, 
trouthe, and curteisye " — the age of feudalism. 

Of vernacular writings in this age the most characteristic are 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 47 

romances and art-lyrics — works that an ungentle person would be 
slow to conceive and an untrained writer at a loss to produce. 
With their composition the commonalty as such had nothing to do. 
Epic incentive was no longer present : refined artistry had come 
into vogue. Now subtleties of expression were favoured ; con- 
ventions of sentiment were expected ; a hierarchy of poets was 
acknowledged. Kings and queens were numbered among the 
devotees of polite verse ; knights and ladies achieved distinction 
by their pens ; bishops and other clergy were enamoured of 
letters. Literary activity was centralised at courts, castles, and 
religious houses. It was encouraged by patronage, promoted by 
demand. All authors, whether ecclesiastical or secular, wrote 
feudally — with devotion, with recognised allegiance, in service 
to some person or cause. Even as troubadours sang for the 
reward, and trouveres wrote at the request, of individual patrons 
or patronesses, so clerks worked as disciples, under direction. 
Yet most appear astonishingly free from subserviency. The 
majority seem to have submitted themselves to none but volun- 
tary yokes. There was much licence and scepticism in the air. 
More than in the century before, or that succeeding, the learned 
were men of the world and acquainted with other than holy 
writ. The twelfth century was an age of humanism. 

To understand the humanistic revival of the times, one must 
know somewhat of the educational institutions then prominent 
in Western Europe. In the eleventh century regular instruction 
was available almost solely at the monasteries. In England 
before the Conquest the schools of Canterbury, Glastonbury, 
Abingdon, Winchester, Worcester, and York had at one time 
or another gained celebrity under distinguished guidance, and, 
though the era of their European renown was long past before 
the coming of the Normans, they and other abbeys maintained, 
throughout the whole mediaeval period, seminaries of some 
dignity. There were also secular schools in connection with 
cathedrals or lay organisations, but these seem never to have 
attained to particular eminence. It was different, however, on 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



the Continent, whither, since the time of Lanfranc and Anselm, 
English students in large numbers had betaken themselves for 
advanced education. In Norman times the monastery schools of 
Normandy, particularly that of Bee, were recognised as important 
centres of learning. Alongside of these were many of fame in 
France proper, such as that on Mont St. Genevieve at Paris, 
which nourished supreme under the great Abelard (1079-1142). 
But gradually cathedral schools surpassed them in distinction, and 
by about n 50 had become the chief resorts for high intellectual 
stimulus. Their organisation prepared the way for the univer- 
sities, which established themselves definitely about the close of 
the century. 

The fame of these schools depended almost wholly on indi- 
vidual teachers. Young men went here and there to study under 
this or that renowned scholar. In various places they pursued 
different branches of research. Paris came to be noted for its 
schools of theology and the arts ; Bologna, Orleans, and Mont- 
pellier for canon or civil law ; Montpellier for medicine ; but Paris 
offered no instruction in civil law, and Bologna had no faculty of 
theology before 1352. Originally the term universitas might 
have been applied to any co-operative society. Gradually it was 
limited to associations of teachers or students. While at Bologna 
it was the latter, at Paris it was the former who banded themselves 
together under this name, to uphold special rights and dignities. 
The seat of learning, as opposed to the organisation, was at first 
called a stadium, and not until well on in the Middle Ages did 
"university" convey the idea of establishment. Special univer- 
sity buildings were at first unknown. The so-called " nations " at 
Paris were but residences, where students from various countries 
assembled for convenience, or as the recipients of bounty. The 
English "colleges," modelled after them, did not rise before the 
second half of the thirteenth century (Merton 1264, Balliol 1282), 
and only became numerous in the fifteenth. The migratory 
policy controlled even the organisation. If for some reason a 
"university" came into conflict with local authority, it moved 



n ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 49 

away to a new abode. The first studium generate at Oxford 
appears to have owed its existence to a large migration of English 
students from Paris about 1167, when Henry II., then in dispute 
with Becket and suspecting that the clerks abroad were partisans 
of his foe, ordered all of them who possessed estates in his land 
to return home, "as they loved their revenues." And Cambridge 
was established through a migration from Oxford in 1 209. 

The studies in the mediaeval schools - proceeded along the old 
traditional lines of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) 
and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). 
Together these formed the seven liberal arts. Based on them 
was the work of the professional schools of divinity, law, and 
medicine. In higher schools of philosophy were prosecuted 
advanced studies in logic and metaphysics. The philosophers 
were divided into antagonistic camps. Particularly were the so- 
called " Realists " and " Nominalists " in constant dispute on the 
subject of " universals." The former contended that abstract terms 
in metaphysics represented real things, and were not mere concep- 
tions of the mind ; the latter that these terms were only devised 
to denote qualities inferred from facts, which facts alone were real. 
To both, however, theology was Madame la Haute Science, and 
the study of logic all scholars deemed of fundamental importance. 

The text -books at first most commonly used were : for 
grammar, Priscian and Donatus ; for rhetoric and dialectic, 
the writings of the Church Fathers, especially those of Augustine, 
Jerome, and Gregory the Great, allegories like The Marriage of 
Mercury and Philology, by Martianus Capella, and treatises like 
The Arts and Discipline of Liberal Learning, by Cassiodorus ; for 
history, the Origins of Isidore of Seville, and the compend of 
Orosius ; for metre, chronology, chronography, etc., various 
didactic works like those of Bede and Alcuin. Boethius was 
an authority on mathematics and music, as well as on philosophy. 
Through his translations, students generally became acquainted 
with Aristotle ; for Greek was in early mediaeval times almost 
completely unknown. But the twelfth century saw a great 

E 



So ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

broadening of knowledge, and in particular an ever - increasing 
familiarity with the Latin classics. The classical reading of a 
noted Englishman of the period has recently been summed up 
by Dr. Reginald Lane Poole as follows : " John of Salisbury 
seems to have been ignorant of Plautus, Lucretius, and per- 
haps Catullus ; but he was familiar with Terence, Virgil, Horace 
(not, however, his Odes), Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Juvenal, Martial, 
Persius, and a number of later poets. If he had read little 
of Cicero's Orations, he knew his philosophical works intimately ; 
and he was well acquainted with Seneca, Quintilian, and the two 
Plinies. With historians he was more poorly supplied. Csesar 
and Tacitus were names to him, and Livy he cites but once ; but 
Sallust, Suetonius, Justinus, and, more than all, Valerius Maxi- 
mus were constantly at his hand. No doubt his resources made 
him dependent to a great extent upon the later classical writers — 
Gellius, Macrobius, Apuleius, etc. — but the range of his reading 
was certainly superior to that of most professed Latinists of the 
present day. Such learning was without question unique in the 
twelfth century ; but the fact that it was possible is proof that the 
mass of Latin literature in attainable manuscripts was far greater 
than is commonly supposed." 

Their classical learning such men as John of Salisbury put to 
daily use, and they strove to write with elegance and precision. 
Accomplished Latinists were thought necessary in the employ of 
any man of power ; through their hands all official correspondence 
passed ; and, among men of affairs as well as the clergy, scholar- 
ship gave a superior glamour to force of personality. 

John of Salisbury (f 1180) was preeminent as a scholar, an 
apostle of classical culture, a humanist. But he was also an 
active diplomat, and a versatile participant in contemporary dis- 
putes. His career has unusual interest. The course of his 
studies during twelve years abroad he has himself recorded, and 
we are able to follow him in his journeys here and there after 
1 136, when he first heard the lectures of Abelard on Mont St. 
Genevieve, as he proceeded to different places to learn of the 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 51 

celebrated teachers of his day ; Robert of Melun, for example, and 
Gilbert de la Porree at Paris, William de Conches and Richard 
l'Eveque at Chartres, and Peter de la Celle at Provins in Cham- 
pagne. About 1 150 he returned to England to become a member 
of the clerical staff of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, to 
whom he had been recommended by Bernard of Clairvaux. 
He soon proved himself the most accomplished of Theobald's 
helpers, and was engaged in many kinds of official business, some 
of which required great tact. Before 1169 he had crossed the 
Alps ten times on missions to Rome, and on one occasion had 
spent three months with Adrian IV., the only Englishman ever 
Pope, with whom he was on terms of affectionate intimacy, and 
from whom he is said to have secured a bull authorising the Con- 
quest of Ireland by the English king. He was one of the 
executors of Theobald's will, and one of the five commissioners 
who went to Montpellier to fetch the pallium for the consecration 
of Becket. Afterwards he became the " eye and arm " of the 
new Archbishop. Though he did not hesitate to point out to 
Becket his mistakes, he nevertheless faithfully supported him in 
difficulty and exile, and was with him when he was murdered. 
He was one of the chief to urge Becket's claim to canonisation, 
as he had before urged Anselm's, this time successfully. He 
remained in England until 1176, when he was made Bishop of 
Chartres. "Vir magnae religionis totiusque scientiae radiis 
illustratus" — so runs his obituary in the church there, where 
he lies. 

Some three hundred of John's letters are extant, clear wit- 
nesses to his keenness of intellect and purity of diction. His 
two great prose works are the Polycraticus and the Metalogicus. 
The former, "The Statesman's Book," which has a descriptive 
sub-title, De Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum, con- 
trasts the vain pursuits of men of his day with the best precepts 
of the philosophers, pointing out the frivolous or vicious pleasures 
that are opposed to reason and right. It is a work of vast learning, 
somewhat miscellaneous, indeed, but greatly praised throughout 



52 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

the Middle Ages and rich in interest even to-day. In the Meta- 
logicus, John defended thoroughly the study of logic, an.d con- 
veyed to his readers a large part of Aristotle's Organon. 

Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom reference 
has just been made, were the most famous French theologians 
of the first half of the century. Abelard's name is now inseparable 
from that of the beautiful Heloise, whose love for him, as revealed 
in their passionate letters to each' other, had such tragic results 
for both. But he deserves worthier renown by virtue of his 
extraordinary intellectual power and bold honesty of scientific 
attitude. In these respects he rises superior to Bernard, who, on 
the other hand, was more zealous and uplifted in spirit. Further 
to contrast the two, Abelard might be called a man of " know- 
ledge " — which, according to a Welsh triad, has three embellishing 
names, " paths of truth, hand of reason, and strength of genius " 
— and Bernard a man of " conscience," the embellishing names 
of which, following the same authority, are " light of heaven, eye 
of truth, and voice of God." The one a speculative schoolman, 
the other a faithful 'mystic, they were naturally opposed in their 
views of dogma. Bernard, more powerful politically in his day, 
succeeded in having Abelard's works condemned as heretical by 
the Council of Sens in 1140. Yet these never ceased to circulate, 
to the advantage of free thought. One can trace little direct 
influence of Abelard's opinions on Middle English writers ; while 
few of those who treated religious themes were unaffected by the 
mysticism of his opponent. In modern times, however, Abelard's 
fame has grown the greater, and he is now universally recognised 
as a thinker of high importance. 

Amongst the many Englishmen in the twelfth century who 
first studied and afterwards taught in France, others besides 
John of Salisbury were Abelard's disciples. Of these one of 
the most conspicuous was John of Salisbury's own master, 
Robert of Melun, who had a famous school at Paris, and 
afterwards at Melun, from about 1130 to 1160. At Mont St. 
Genevieve the " Robertines " lomr continued to discuss their 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE S3 

leader's great work " on the nature of God, the angels, and man, 
on the soul, man's state, his disposition before and after the Fall, 
and his redemption," the Summa Theofogiae, which above all 
gave warrant for his repute as a metaphysician. Robert's most 
illustrious pupil was perhaps Thomas a Becket, with whom he 
was closely connected all his life, and through whose favour he 
was appointed to the see of Hereford, a position which he held at 
his death in 1167. Another English teacher of note at Paris was 
Adam du Petit Pont, who died in 1180, Bishop of St. Asaph's. 
He was a pupil of Peter Lombard (fn6o), whose Sententiae 
had enormous vogue. In his Eulogium Adam defends the 
theological doctrines of his master concerning the humanity of 
Christ against the vigorous attacks made upon them by another 
prominent Englishman of the time, John of Cornwall (fl. 11 70). 
Adam was a friend of John of Salisbury's, but the latter reproaches 
him with over-subtlety and quibbling. 

It is remarkable, indeed, how many Englishmen at this period 
gained distinction abroad, not merely as teachers, but also as 
administrators : for example, John of Poictiers, a native of Kent, 
and a member of the household of Theobald of Canterbury, who 
from 1 181 to 1 T93 was Archbishop of Lyons; Ralph of Sarr in 
Thanet, another Canterbury clerk, who was Dean of Rheims from 
1 1 76 to 1 194; Robert Pullus, Chancellor of the Holy Roman 
Church (1145-46), who taught at Oxford and Paris; and Master 
Thomas Brown, a sort of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Sicily. 

By exchange, various prominent Frenchmen received pre- 
ferment in England. Thus Gerard la Pucelle, noted as a teacher 
at Paris and Cologne, was chosen by Becket to be Bishop of 
Coventry (f 1184). Still more interesting was Peter of Blois 
(/?. 1 190). First a student at Tours, Paris, and Bologna, he later 
gained experience of men as a teacher, legislator (he was for a 
time keeper of the royal seal in Sicily), and royal ambassador. 
An aristocrat himself, no one was more familiar with princes and 
prelates. In England, thanks to his own merits as well as to the 
favour of Henry II., he occupied such positions as Chancellor to 



54 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archdeacon of Bath, Secretary of 
the Queen, and Archdeacon of London — nothing very high. 
Though superbly vain, he had in reality very distinguished 
qualities as a scholar. Still extant from his hand are a score of 
Opuscula on theology, some sixty-five sermons, and a large body 
of letters, which he collected at the request of the King. In his 
youth, he tells us, he was given to composing poems of a secular 
character, but later he deliberately abandoned that style of verse 
for a graver sort. Once, writing to a grammar-teacher of Beauvais, 
he complains : 

You have remained with the ass in the mire of a very dull intelligence. 
Priscian and Tully, Lucan and Persius, these are your gods. I fear lest when 
you die it may be said of you in reproach : Where are your gods in whom 
you have put your trust ? 

And again, trying to dissuade a friend from purely secular 
studies, he pleads : 

What have you to do with these false vanities and follies ? What con- 
cern have you, who ought to be an organ of truth, with the fabulous loves of 
the gods of the Gentiles ? . . . You have spent your days until old age in the 
fables of the Gentiles, in the studies of the philosophers, and finally in civil 
law, and, contrary to the wishes of all who loved you, you have endangered 
your soul by avoiding the sacred page of theology. 

Yet he himself never conquered his taste for the writers of 
antiquity, and he elaborately defends his practice of quoting from 
the Latin poets. 

Peter, moreover, gives us information of the courts at Canter- 
bury and London. In one letter to a correspondent abroad, he 
thus exalts the former : 

There are, he says, in the house of my lord the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, men deeply versed in literature, among whom is found all rectitude of 
justice, all prudence of foresight, every form of learning. These, after prayers 
and before eating, exercise themselves assiduously in the reading, arguing, and 
deciding of causes. All the knotty questions of the kingdom are referred to 
us, which, being propounded among our fellows in the common auditory, each 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 55 

in his turn without strife or contention sharpens his mind to speak well, and 
puts forth with his cunning whatever appears to him most admirable and 
profitable. 

On another occasion, in a letter to the Archbishop of Palermo, 
he writes as follows : 

Your king is a good scholar, but ours is far better ; I know the ability 
and accomplishments of both. You are aware that the King of Sicily was 
my pupil for a year ; you yourself taught him the elements of verse-making 
and literary composition ; from me he had further and deeper lessons ; but as 
soon as I left the kingdom he threw away his books and took to the easy- 
going ways of the court. But with the King of England there is school every 
day, constant conversation of the best scholars, and discussion of questions. 

This is a situation that should be remembered. The court 
of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine was a centre of learned 
men and poets, as well as of warriors and knights. Distinguished 
writers of every kind found a welcome at London, one of the 
largest French-speaking cities in Europe. The domains of the 
English king comprised about two -thirds of what is now 
France, and he stood second to none in power. " An illiterate 
king is a crowned ass," Henry Beauclerc once said. This 
Henry II. also believed. He had himself been a student under 
William de Conches, and surpassed his father in the generosity 
of his patronage. In considering the prominent clergy of his 
realm one must keep in mind that they were steadily engaged in 
conflicts of war and wit, that they followed with understanding 
the proceedings of chivalrous adventure, and listened with 
sympathy to the narratives of daring exploits. We read of 
Becket, as a young soldier -statesman, unhorsing one of the 
most valiant warriors of France in single encounter, and later, 
as Archbishop, wishing that his sacred office permitted him to 
retaliate by force on one who angered him. When he travelled 
to France to arrange a marriage for his king, it is said that 
250 boys, gaily attired, went singing before him on the journey, 
so that even the monarch of France marvelled at his extrava- 
gance. The figure of this prelate (the first native since the 



56 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

Conquest to occupy so high an office) will always appear 
prominent in the background of any picture of the learned men 
of his time, not for any important works that he himself wrote, 
but because he was the occasion of many. He gathered about 
him a faithful body of admirers and he aroused the ire of as 
many opponents. Whether right or wrong in the controversies 
he obstinately waged, he deserves credit for his attitude of 
respect for letters and his disposition to advance men of note. 

In Becket's group were also Robert Foliot, his teacher 
(f 1 1 86), whom he helped to the bishopric of Hereford; Gilbert 
Foliot, whom he came to hate bitterly, and twice excommuni- 
cated, calling him gently "the forerunner of Antichrist and 
the exciter of all the king's malice " ; Bartholomew, chosen 
Bishop of Exeter in 1160, whom, on the contrary, Becket and 
others regarded as a luminary of the land; and the Crusader 
Baldwin, who, after considerable opposition, was elected' in 
1 1 90 to Thomas's see. These were all men of learning, and 
wrote books which gave them honour in their time, but which 
it is hardly relevant to discuss here. 

Much more important for our purpose is a study of the 
achievement of the Norman-Welshman Walter Map — a clerk of 
Henry II.'s household under Becket, previously a student at Paris 
under Gerard la Pucelle, an associate of John of Salisbury's, a 
friend of Gilbert Foliot's, a justice itinerant, a royal ambassador 
to the Lateran Council at Rome in 1179, who was appointed 
Archdeacon of Oxford in 1197, and died in 12 10. Map's 
chief work is a book of " Courtier's Triflings," of exceeding 
refreshment to one who has long been delving in theological 
burrows. He evidently took his title De Nitgis Curialium 
from John of Salisbury's Pofycraticus, but only to enforce the 
difference of his purpose. His volume was no systematic 
arraignment of his age and appeal to the guidance of antiquity, 
but a commentary on contemporary events, which he believed 
that it would be useful for future generations to read. The 
courtiers of Henry II. and his successor did not undervalue 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



their own importance. They were well aware of the advance 
of the realm under their leadership, without being pettily puffed 
up. Just as Richard FitzNeal, the author of the Dialogue on the 
Exchequer (1178-79), was urged to record his knowledge of that 
subject, and, complying, wrote a valuable historical document, 
so Map was urged to tell of what had been going on recently in 
the high society with which he was familiar, and this he under- 
took, not without reluctance, for he lived a busy life, but with 
confidence that the performance was worth while. Map makes 
modest parade of his lack of time. "How," he writes to one 
who had asked him for a poem — "how can you expect me, the 
Tantalus of Hades (the court), to give people drink ; me, the 
youth in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, to sing ? " But we must 
not take over seriously his diatribes against the court, for he 
evidently relished his life there and was a general favourite. 
Nor need we believe that his too-much-protested lack of skill 
indicated a feeling of real weakness. Map's book is scrappy 
and unsystematic (hence his apologies), but these faults are 
those of temperament, not of intelligence. Without worry, 
he left the more serious- minded professors to push their 
dialectics to the limit of meticulous subtlety, to set forth with 
fine distinction and in careful arrangement the results of their 
large accumulations of facts. For himself, he was content to 
tell of the interesting people whom he had seen, and to repeat 
the good stories that he had heard. He was no withdrawn 
ascetic, no dull moralist, but a friendly, sympathetic, genial, 
secular clerk, nearer kin to Chaucer than any man of his age. 

Map began his De Nugis about 1180, and made public part 
of it about 1 1 88, but he did not give it final shape till about 
1 193. In this final form it includes a treatise against marriage 
with which Chaucer was familiar, entitled Valerius ad Rufinum de 
non ducenda Uxore, Valerius being Map himself, and Rufinus a 
friend whom the solicitous author hoped to rescue from the 
disaster of marriage by painting it in gloomy colours. The 
sentiments of this very popular treatise were applauded by 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



many another scholar in mediaeval times besides the fifth 
husband of the Wife of Bath. 

To Map has been ascribed a large share in the development 
of the legend of the Holy Grail; but the evidence in support 
of this view is exceedingly slight. Doubt also attaches to the 
authorship of much of the so-called " Goliardic " verse that was 
connected with his name. Bishop Golias, however, was probably 
a figure of Map's creation, and used by him as a means of 
satire on ecclesiastical conditions. The name Golias was 
reminiscent of Goliath, and suggested derivation from gula, 
the gullet. Characteristically, then, this bishop was pictured as 
gigantic in Philistinism and abominable in gluttony and lust. 
He was the head of a large family of riotous and unthrifty clergy, 
who came to be known as "goliards." Langland's "goliardeis" 
was "a glutton of words." Chaucer applied the term to the 
loud-mouthed Miller, the teller of vulgar tales, " And that was 
most of sinne and harlotryes." 

Golias, it seems, had an Apocalypse and made a Con- 
fession, both of which are preserved in poems long attributed 
to Map. 

In the former, Pythagoras appears to the dreamer, resting one hot summer's 
day under an oak, and guides him into a strange land, where are many 
distinguished writers of antiquity, in various attitudes, variously occupied. 
He is observing them, when a flaming angel appears, conducts him in spirit 
to the gate of heaven, and shows him the mysteries of the seven churches in 
England. Intently he gazes on a book with seven chapters and seals, con- 
taining the lives of them that were set over the Church. As one part after 
another is opened, the dreamer reads of the evil practices of Pope, prelates, 
archdeacons, deans, and other officials, especially of abbots. All these things 
the guide writes upon his brain, and them he remembers, though what he 
afterwards sees in the third heaven of God's mysteries he straightway forgets, 
having eaten of supernatural food and drunk of the water of Lethe. 

In the Confession Golias makes a jovial shrift for sins of 
lechery and drunkenness : he has spent a frivolous life ; he has 
never been able to resist the wine-cup ; his god has been his belly. 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 59 

Meum est propositum in taberna mori : 
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, 
Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, 
" Deus sit propitius huic potatori." 

These, the best-known lines of the poem, are now widely 
familiar as part of drinking-song. 

The numerous Goliardic poems written during and after 
Map's time in England, as Thomas Wright justly observes, 
are not " the expressions of hostility of one man against an 
order of monks, but of the indignant patriotism of a considerable 
portion of the English nation against the encroachments of 
ecclesiastical and civil tyranny. The spirit which gave rise 
to them, and which is pictured with remarkable interest in 
the Chronicle of Matthew Paris, was in activity from the 
reign of Henry II. to the end of that of his grandson Henry 
III., during a full century. Lost sight of in some degree 
during the political movements which followed, it again made 
itself felt under Edward III., exhibited itself in the nervous 
satire of Piers Ploughman, became powerful in the person of 
Wycliffe, and after having again been dormant for a period, 
burst out at last in the Reformation." 

Giraldus Cambrensis relates how King Richard, when 
rebuked by a holy man as follows : " You have three daughters, 
namely, Pride, Luxury, and Avarice ; and as long as they shall 
remain with you, you can never expect to be in favour with 
God " — thus replied, after a short pause : " I have already given 
away those daughters in marriage, Pride to the Templars, Luxury 
to the Black Monks, and Avarice to the White." Gerald himself 
remarks that the cloistered monk was but "a barren grain of 
seed, a seed hidden between stones, and withheld from con- 
tact with the earth, by which alone it could yield increase." 
Plainly the contempt of the secular clergy for the monastic 
orders at the close of the twelfth century was very great, and 
much of it found expression in writing. Walter Map's par- 
ticular abhorrence was the Cistercian. But other poets were 



60 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

all-inclusive in their disdain. Even monks did not refrain from 
pointing out the corruption that had taken root amongst 
themselves. 

One of the most biting satires of the period was the Speculum 
Stultorum of Nigel Wireker, precentor of the church of Canterbury, 
and a close friend of William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, the 
vigorous reformer of monastic abuses. 

The hero is an ass called Brunei, who thinks his tail too short, and 
consults the philosopher Galen to see how it can be lengthened. The latter 
points out to him his folly, shows him that he is as well off as any one, and 
tells him the story of the two cows Brunetta and Bicomis, whose tails once 
got frozen to the ice, so that they could not move. Bicornis cut off her tail 
and escaped, to grieve for ever after because of her impatience. Brunetta 
lingered a little until hers thawed out, and was able to rejoice long in her 
wisdom. But Brunei being still eager for more tail, Galen gives him a 
recipe and sends him to Salerno to have it filled. Thither the ass goes, but 
on the way is variously put upon by designing merchants and monks. Half 
of his tail is bitten off by dogs, and all his goods are lost. Then he repairs 
to Paris to become a scholar, and joins the English " nation " ; but he is too 
stupid to excel, and he decides to become a monk. No one of the orders 
satisfying him, he determines to form a new one combining the laxities 
of all. He tries to win Galen to his order. But his career is suddenly 
interrupted by the arrival of his old master Bernard, who claims him as his, 
and degrades him to the position for which he was first and best fitted. 

This poem is remarkable for the light it throws on actual 
conditions, not only in the monasteries, but also in the schools 
of the time. It is written in elegiacs, and was very often repro- 
duced. Chaucer, in the Nun's Priest's Tale, refers to a story 
told Brunei when on his way to Paris, of a cock who avenged 
himself on a priest's son for a slight the latter had done him. 

Next to the verses of " Daun Burnel the Asse," the most 
striking satire on English conditions of the period {c. 1184) 
is the Architrenius, or "Arch- weeper," by a Norman, Jean de 
Hauteville. It is dedicated to Walter de Coutances, Archbishop 
of Rouen (f 1207), a native Briton, who occupied high political 
offices in England under Henry II. and Richard I., with both of 
whom he was intimate. 



n ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 61 

The "chronic grumbler" sets out to find Nature, to seek her aid against 
the weaknesses she has afflicted him with. He comes first to the palace of 
Venus, and inflames the hearts of her damsels, the most beautiful of whom 
he describes minutely ; then to the abode of Gluttony, where he tells of the 
tastes of the gourmands of his day ; then to Paris, the centre of Learning, 
where he observes the poor condition of the students (their mean dress, bad 
fare, wretched lodgings, and hard work). He laments the vanities of the 
learned, but bewails the fact that the rich will not give over their luxuries 
and encourage study. Later he comes to the mount of Ambition, where 
courtiers assemble ; to the hill of Presumption, full of clergy and professors ; 
discovers the hideous monster Cupidity, which prelates should avoid ; observes 
the ancient philosophers in Thule deriding mankind ; and finally meets Dame 
Nature in a flowery plain and hears her discourse on natural philosophy. 
She gives the sorrowful Architrenius a noble wife, Moderation, and sufficient 
counsel on married life. 

Satire, indeed, being the natural product of an intellectual 
and alert society, flourished notably in the second half of the 
twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, when from 
all quarters hailstorms of ridicule descended on idlers, pedants, 
and fops. Independence, intelligence, and high ideals are every- 
where apparent in the frank denunciation of developing dangers. 
And, amid the temptations of so diverting an age, it required 
steady purpose to steer a wise course. Should Philocosmia, love of 
worldly enjoyment, or Philosophia, be the mistress chosen by an 
ambitious youth to whom the arms of both were open wide, was a 
question which troubled many besides Athelard of Bath. But 
the host who, like that devoted student of natural science at the 
beginning of the century, then decided to " scorn delights and 
live laborious days," clearly attests the prevailing stimulus to great 
achievement. 

In September 1157, the story runs, were born on the same night 
Richard I. at Windsor and Alexander Neckham at St. Albans, 
and both were suckled by the latter's mother, who bared for the 
prince her right breast and for her own child the left. The one 
became a brilliant warrior, the other a brilliant scholar. This 
tale, whether true or not, may be taken to symbolise the actual 
situation in England at that time : with the same intellectual 



62 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

nurture most men of prominence were then prepared for public 
life. The doctors and bachelors of the schools were as keen for 
struggle as the knights and squires who rode out on adventurous 
emprise. 

Alexander Neckham, professor at Paris when only twenty- 
three, exemplifies a type of universal scholar which became 
more frequent in the thirteenth century — theologian, grammarian, 
man of science, and poet, all in one, more like the friars about to 
be than the monks among whom he was. Neckham wrote many 
works of a religious and didactic nature, including a De Vita 
Monachorum and a moralised version of ^Esop's Fables ; but the 
most famous are those on natural science, metrical and prose 
treatises on various aspects of the universe, De Naturis Reruns 
wherein fact and fable strangely meet and true knowledge is 
barnacled with superstition. 

At Oxford in the reign of Stephen, an Italian, Master Vacarius, 
gave lectures on jurisprudence, and abridged Justinian for the 
use of his classes. Specially prominent at the court of Henry 
II., the great justiciar, Ranulph de Glanville (f 1190), not only saw 
that the English laws were enforced, but prepared, or directed 
the preparation of, an admirable treatise about them. The now 
famous work, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Angliae, which 
goes under his name, was almost the first systematic treatment of 
legal enactment since Roman times, and potent in influence. 
On it was based the more comprehensive and important law- 
book of Henry de Bracton (or Bratton), who died, Dean of the 
Cathedral Church of Exeter, in 1268. 

Two circumstances in the closing years of Glanville's life 
attract our attention. Being, as William of Newburgh relates, 
at the table of Richard I. when news was brought of the 
slaughter of the Jews in London, he was at once despatched to 
deal with the mob. In the same year, 1 190, he joined the Crusade 
recently proclaimed, proceeded by Marseilles to Syria, and was 
killed at the siege of Acre. The presence of large numbers of 
Jews in England and the travels to the East of many distinguished 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 63 

men were of consequence for English learning and literature. It 
was through Jewish scholars that much Arabic lore was made 
accessible in the West, and the acquaintance of men at large with 
Oriental civilisation, first extensively revealed to them by the 
Crusades, gave a new impulse to science hardly inferior in 
importance to the new provision of narrative that it procured. 

The practice of travel had begun early in England, and 
students journeyed in all directions in pursuit of new knowledge. 
As early as 1102, a Saxon Ssewulf visited the Holy Land, and on 
his return wrote an account of his travels, anticipating a habit 
that the Crusades confirmed. About the same time, Athelard 
of Bath, already mentioned, after exhausting the supply of 
information accessible to him in France, and still insatiate, 
sought more in Bagdad and various other places in the East. 
After his return to France he established a school particularly 
for instruction in Arabic lore, the value of which he himself 
defended in his Quaestiones Naturales, written in the form of a 
dialogue with his young nephew. Robert of Retines, another 
English scholar of Arabic, studied " astrology " at Evora in Spain, 
and helped to translate the Koran in 1143. Later in the century, 
Daniel of Morley (Norfolk ?) left Paris in disgust for Toledo, the 
intellectual pride of Spain, and brought back to England "a 
costly multitude of books." His own treatises show large in- 
fluence of Arabic and Greek philosophy. Thus the extensive 
appropriation of Eastern science in England in the following era 
was clearly anticipated. 

The interesting fact has newly been pointed out that in the 
reign of Henry II. there was noteworthy writing by English Jews, 
who then prospered in London. 

Whereas, says Mr. Joseph Jacobs, in the thirteenth century' we know 
only of an insignificant poet, Meir of Norwich ; a codifier of Jewish ritual, 
Jacob Ben Jehuda of London ; and a legal authority, Moses of London, in 
the twelfth century recent research has revealed the names of twenty Jewish 
authors, some of considerable merit and importance. In particular, the study 
of the Massora, or text of the Scriptures, was especially prevalent among the 
English Jews, and led to the compilation of an important Hebrew Grammar 



64 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

by Samuel of Bristol, which was followed by a still more extensive work on 
the subject, entitled The Onyx Book, by Moses Ben Isaac of London. 
The chief Anglo -Jewish writer of the twelfth century, however, was 
Berachyah Nakdan, known as Benedict le Puncteur of Oxford, whose Fox 
Fables resemble those of Marie de France, and were probably derived from 
the same source. He was also the translator into Hebrew of Adelard's 
Quaestiones Naturales and a French work on Mineralogy, and a Com- 
mentary on Job by him is still extant in manuscript at Cambridge. Out- 
side Spain no such important works were produced by any European Jews at 
this period, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that Abraham Ibn Ezra, 
the most distinguished author of his time and the original of Browning's 
Rabbi Ben Ezra, visited England in 1 158. 

The vernacular of the English Jews remained French up to 
the time of their expulsion (1290). Their learned men were 
subtle in disputation, and the heresies they promulgated required 
the close attention of the Christian clerks. 



IV 

The Anglo-Latin poetry of the monastic period was mostly 
religious or occasional — on the one hand, hymns, sequences, 
prayers, cantica of divine redemption or in honour of the Virgin, 
together with instructive works of greater length ; on the other 
hand, elegies, eulogies, complaints, dedications, poems of praise 
or blame on contemporary conditions and events. To those 
already mentioned may be added the names of a few other Anglo- 
Normans well reputed for their Latin verse. The best, perhaps, 
is Godfrey, Prior of St. Swithin's, Winchester (f 1107), a native 
of Cambrai, the author of a considerable body of Proverbia, or 
epigrams, in the style of Martial. The " Marcial " from whom 
Gower several times quotes is no other than he. Numerous 
eulogies by him of English princes and princesses, bishops, 
abbots, and monks are couched in a "familiar and. sweet style" 
which his contemporaries warmly commended. Reginald of 
Canterbury (f c. 1136), a friend of Anselm's, likewise wrote 
many short poems, and one long one concerning the Eastern 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 65 

Saint Malchus. To at least eleven recipients of copies of this 
latter work he devised ingenious, if somewhat laboured, dedica- 
tions. Reginald also wrote verse memorials of ten saints of his 
church at Canterbury and other eulogies of leaders. Encomiums, 
indeed, persisted in vogue throughout the century, and engaged 
the efforts of many poets. Some are marked by great extrava- 
gance of statement and amazing conceits ; others seem sincere, 
betray fine feeling, and have historical worth. Becket is praised, 
with energy and warmth, in no less than eight anonymous poems. 
Lawrence, Prior of Durham and the King's chaplain (f 11 54), 
was the most distinguished Latin versifier of Stephen's reign. 
His chief work is an Hypognosticon, nine books of Scripture 
history, in elegiacs. Verse of changing metre is interspersed 
with prose in his Consolatio pro Morte Amid, modelled on 
Boethius. Lawrence is further credited with a poem on the 
city and diocese of Durham, in the form of a dialogue between 
himself and another monk. In old annals of Durham he is 
described as " a man of great discretion and honest conversation, 
skilled in law, endowed with eloquence, well grounded in the 
divine institutes, and not needing to beg counsel of others in 
adversity." About 11 50 was put into a new shape the Visio 
Philiberti, or Dialogus inter Corpus et Animavi; and about 1185 
Henry of Saltrey (Sawtrey in Huntingdonshire), a Cistercian 
monk, composed his version of The Purgatory of St. Patrick — 
fine embodiments of two of the most familiar religious themes 
in early England. Familiar in England as well as on the Con- 
tinent, we may note in passing, must also have been the wonder- 
ful melodies and hymns of Adam of St. Victor, Hildebert of 
Tours, and Bernard of Cluny, as well as the Dies Irae attributed 
to Thomas of Celano, all of this period or a little after. We 
still sing, "The world is very evil," "Jerusalem the golden," 
" For thee, O dear, dear country," etc., in solemn service ; and 
" O day of wrath, O dreadful day," a notable translation of which 
appears in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, has been treated nobly 
in music by many composers. 

F 



66 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

The only conspicuous epic poet of the century was Joseph 
of Exeter, whose De Bello Trojano, composed c. 1184 in flowing 
hexameters, was first printed as the work of Cornelius Nepos. 
Joseph was a Crusader in sympathy, perhaps also in fact. He 
dedicated his history to Archbishop Baldwin, and is said to have 
accompanied King Richard to Syria. Of another epic by him, 
on the siege of Antioch, only an interesting short passage, exalting 
the flos regum Arthurus, appears to exist. The Vita Merlini 
attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth, an elegant poem of over 
1500 hexameter lines, is particularly important to us because of 
the light it throws on Welsh legend. 

By an accident, which will now be regarded as lucky, we 
have evidence preserved of dramatic performances in the time 
of the Conqueror. It happened then that a Norman, Geoffrey, 
previously a student at Paris, who had come to England by 
invitation of the Abbot of St. Albans, and was temporarily 
superintendent of the school at Dunstable, undertook to give 
there a miracle-play of St. Catherine. For costumes he borrowed 
copes from St. Albans ; but a fire broke out in his house while 
they were still in his keeping, and all were destroyed. This 
was a circumstance of sufficient note to find record in the 
chronicle of St. Albans, of which monastery, in n 19, Geoffrey 
became abbot. It is clear that the custom of having religious 
plays in connection with the church services soon became regular, 
and in Becket's time, as his biographer William Fitzstephen relates, 
it was definitely established at London. " London," he writes, 
" in lieu of the ancient shews of the theatre and the entertain- 
ments of the scene, has exhibitions of a more devout kind ; either 
representations of those miracles which were wrought by holy 
confessors, or those passions and sufferings in which the martyrs 
so signally displayed their fortitude." Nor are we altogether in 
the dark as to the nature of the performances. About the 
middle of the century, an Englishman named Hilarius wrote 
in France three plays adapted to ecclesiastical use, the earliest 
s; ecimens of the kind extant : a mystery of the raising of 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 67 

Lazarus, a miracle of the image of St. Nicholas, and a more 
elaborate Christmas- play of the history of Daniel, in the first 
two of which French is blended with Latin verse. 

Hilarius went to France about n 25 to study with Abelard. 
He seems to have been a full-blooded person, without austerity. 
The unique manuscript of his works contains a dozen highly 
interesting Latin lyrics in rhyming verse, with French occasionally 
interspersed, which are addressed to various persons of his 
acquaintance. Amongst them an amatory greeting to an English 
maiden named Rose is of exceptional grace. Of similar 
character, no doubt, were the nugae amatoriae of Henry of 
Huntingdon, Peter of Blois, and other learned Latinists, which 
they sedately deplore having written in days of frivolity. 
Milton, it will be remembered, depreciated Sidney's Arcadia as 
" vain " and " amatorious," and counted his own youthful verse 
of small worth in comparison with his great religious epic. 
Unfortunately, with regard to many mediaeval poets, we must 
be content to take their word that they also wrote "vain, 
amatorious" poems, and estimate their temper solely by heavy 
works brought forth with prayer and fasting. Had they been 
anxious to commit to posterity the fruits of their impulse as 
well as of their labour, we might be able to justify better by 
example our high opinion of their imaginative power. 

The metres, sentiments, and styles of Anglo -Latin poetry 
show the effect of influences previously foreign to English art, 
and when we look about to see whence these came, we dis- 
cover them readily in lands with which England was intimate, 
where poetry then richly throve — in Provence, namely, and in 
Wales. 

The relations of Provence to England in the twelfth century 
were very close, particularly after the marriage of Eleanor of 
Poitou, in 1 149, to the as yet uncrowned Henry II., by which 
a large part of southern France was united to the English crown ; 
and these relations lasted till well on in the thirteenth century, 
nearly from beginning to end of the flourishing period of the 



68 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

troubadours. It is well known that the great love-poet Bernard 
de Ventadour (1148-1195) was the loyal liegeman of Eleanor, 
and resided at her court. " Long did he dwell there, singing 
many a good song of her. And he loved her, and she him 
likewise." The satirist Macabru (c. 1 140- 1 185) is also said 
to have resided in England for a while on special missions. 
The politician, Bertran de Born (fl. c. 11 80), whom Dante put 
in hell as a begetter of strife, and yet applauded as " a great 
singer of arms," was most closely connected with the English 
royal house, to the prejudice of its peace. His warm affection 
for Henry's eldest son, the young king who never ruled, he 
exhibited in one or two complaints for his death. It was he who 
nicknamed Richard " Yea and Nay." Richard himself was a 
troubadour of no mean skill, like his friend Alphonso II., the 
powerful King of Aragon, both of whom were generous in 
patronage to fellow-poets. In Richard's entotirage were, amongst 
others, the skilful but conceited Peire Vidal, the popular monk 
of Montaldon, as well as the sophisticated Arnaut Daniel. In 
an elegy on Richard, Gaucelm Faidit proclaimed him the " ideal 
hero of chivalry, comparable to Alexander, Charlemagne, and 
Arthur, and the honourable founder of tourneys, arms, and 
festivals." Savaric de Mauleon (1 200-1 230) took an active part 
in the struggles against King John. " Above all men did he 
delight in bounty and gallantry, and love and jousts and singing 
and playing, and poetry and feasting and spending." John 
was severely reproached in a sirventes by the younger Bertran 
de Born for his " supineness " in dealing with his foes. And 
Henry III. was denounced by Sordello (1225-1250) for not 
attempting to recover his Continental domains. Numerous Pro- 
vencals visited England in the thirteenth century as a result of 
the favour shown by Henry III. to the relatives of his queen 
Eleanor. 

The formal influence of Provencal on English poetry is of 
three kinds, on secular and religious lyrics, on political poems 
and satires, and on " debates " — working through the canso, the 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 69 

sirventes, and the tenso or joe partit. It appears to have 
manifested itself earlier than is usually believed (perhaps before 
1 1 00) on Latin writers and by direct channels of communica- 
tion, not always, if perhaps chiefly, by way of France. 

The Norman Thomas, Archbishop of York, Anselm's 
opponent (who wrote the epitaph in elegiacs inscribed on the 
tomb of the Conqueror), is said by William of Malmesbury 
to have composed religious songs in imitation of those of the 
jongleurs (" si quis in auditu ejus arte joculatoria aliquid vocale 
sonaret, statim illud in divinas laudes effigiabat "). These songs 
certainly were not Anglo-Saxon. None contemporaneous of 
a sort fitted for such service are extant in French. Most prob- 
ably they were of the type that had developed in Provence out 
of Latin Church poetry and were therefore easily readapted to 
liturgical use. Reginald of Canterbury was born at " Fagia," in 
the south of France (perhaps Tiffauges in the north of Poitou), 
where his patron the Lord Aimeric lived, and may have learned 
his methods there. Just as, solely on the basis of Chaucer's 
assertion that in his youth he wrote " balades, roundels, and 
virelays," we should be forced to admit that he went to school 
to the contemporary poets of France, so we must believe from 
the confessions of the clerks, how they persistently indulged 
in nugae a?natoriae, that they were enamored of southern lyric 
modes. Provencal metres certainly affected those of the Anglo- 
Latin, Anglo-French, and Middle English lyrics, both religious 
and secular. 

The ideas of chivalrous love, which are generally admitted 
to have first waxed strong in Provence, are found current in 
England as early as 11 36, for Geoffrey of Monmouth at that 
date shows his familiarity with them, — perhaps earlier, for 
William IX., Count of Poitiers (1086- 1127), the grandfather 
of Queen Eleanor, and the first prominent troubadour, was 
well known in England, " a valiant knight in warfare, and 
bounteous in love -gallantry; and he knew well to sing and to 
make poetry." William of Malmesbury, though he deplored 



70 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

his irreverence, paid a tribute to his wit. In iioi he led 
an unsuccessful expedition to the Holy Land, and wrote a 
poem on the first Crusade. Apparently he was the patron 
of Bleheris (Bledhericus), the Welsh fabulator, to whom Giraldus 
Cambrensis refers, and whom Thomas, the author of Tristan, 
recognised as an authority in matters of Arthurian romance. 
Thomas, it should be noted, dedicated his poem to "lovers," 
and expected them to get comfort from it " encuntre tuz engins 
d'amurs." And all this was before the flourishing of Marie de 
France and Crestien de Troyes, whose works presuppose general 
acceptance among the polite of the principles of courtliness. 
Only after them do French works breathing this atmosphere 
obtain international vogue. It was a Provencal who wrote the 
poem on Perceval which the German Wolfram von Eschenbach 
utilised as a basis for his, the best, version of the legend of the 
Holy Grail. 

In the form of the sirventes were composed poems of a serious 
nature, political, social, or didactic, and these were often in- 
fluential to an astonishing degree. King Richard wrote poems 
of this kind to spite his enemies, and to secure release from 
prison. We have still three sirventes directed against John, 
and two against Henry III., written by subjects in disgust at 
their rulers' feebleness. Some of the so-called Goliardic verse, 
the satires and drinking-songs of England, seem to betray a 
southern mould. 

Still more manifest is the influence of Provencal style, 
directly or indirectly, on the " debates " of various kinds which 
were popular in England and France towards the end of the 
twelfth and at the beginning of the thirteenth century. We 
have Latin disputes Inter Aquam et Vinum, Inter Cor et Oiulum, 
De Mauro et Zoilo, De Presbytero et Logico ; but, best of all, 
the elegant and charming De Phillide et Flora, by an Anglo- 
Norman, not, however, Walter Map, to whom it has often been 
ascribed. As an Elizabethan translation explains, this is " a 
sweet poem, containing a civil contention of two amorous 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 71 

ladies (both virgins and princesses), the one devoted in her 
love to a soldier, the other affecting a scholar, and, both to 
maintain their choice, they contend (as women) to commend 
and reprove either other's love, by the best and soundest reasons 
they can allege, whether the scholar or the soldier were the 
more allowable of his profession in women's minds, and aptest 
and worthiest to be best accepted in ladies' favours." They 
call on the God of Love to decide, and naturally (considering 
the authorship of the poem) he decides in favour of the clerk. 

One line of the poem reads : " Fert Phillis accipitrem manu, 
Flora nisum," which suggests the role of the hawks, falcons, 
and other birds in the disputes adjudged by the theoretic courts 
of love. In this class fall certain Anglo-French debates, and 
one of the earliest and best of Middle English poems, The Owl 
and the Nightingale, all of the early thirteenth century. Latin, 
French, and English are here rivals in the same domain, and 
the English more than holds its own. The Owl and the 
Nightingale, it may be remarked, is superior to the general run 
of contemporaneous vernacular production, because the author 
was evidently a disciplined clerk, a trained writer of Latin verse. 
There is no French element in his vocabulary. He wrote in 
English, it would seem, for a particular reason, to support a 
view opposed to that of foreign ecclesiastics and courtiers, 
much as Wycliffe adopted the vernacular when he found himself 
at variance with the Roman clergy and desired the support 
of the people. The awkward rusticity of much Middle English 
writing is obviously due to the fact that it was the product of 
men inferior intellectually, of lower station, and less cultivated 
than those who were conspicuous in their age, and not to the 
fact that English itself was a rough instrument or Englishmen 
prevailingly dull. Likewise, the only good bit of continuous 
early Middle English prose, the Ancren Riwle, is graced by 
distinction of style because it was the work of a cultivated 
scholar, written, some think, first in Latin, at all events by one 
disciplined in the Latin schools. 



72 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE - chap. 

In Wales during this period the situation was much as in 
Provence. Never has there been in either land a higher stage 
of intellectual culture, never more virile personalities or more 
original achievement. The intimate association of the Normans 
with the Welsh had been fruitful of good results. The followers 
of the Conqueror who were given by him possessions in the West, 
found the Welsh sympathetic companions. Intermarriages be- 
tween representatives of the two races were frequent from the 
highest down. Nesta, the so-called Helen of Wales, daughter of 
Rhys ap Tewdyr, the last of the Welsh kings, was by Henry I. 
the mother of the FitzHenries; by Gerard de Windsor, of the 
FitzGeralds ; by Stephen, Castellan of Aberteivi, of the Fitz- 
Stephens. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the patron of letters, was 
her son by Henry I. She was the grandmother of Gerald de 
Barri. David ab Owen Gwynedd married a sister of Henry II. ; 
and later Llewellyn ab Iorwerth married Joan, daughter of King 
John. The princes of Powys were always favourites at the 
English court, notably Owen (f 1197), the distinguished author 
of the Hirlas Horn, one of the longest and best Welsh poems 
of the century. Owen was excommunicated by Baldwin for his 
indifference about the third Crusade. Yet the Archbishop 
induced three thousand Welshmen to take the Cross. 

The contribution of poetic material by the communicative 
Welsh to the assimilative Normans no one will question. In- 
dubitably from Wales issued many a stream of myth and fable to 
swell the river of British romance. But it is not yet clear how 
much the Welsh influenced Anglo-Latin styles. One is tempted 
to hold that the exceptionally great vogue of occasional verse in 
England at the time was affected by the predominance of the 
same types across the border. And did not the triads stimulate 
the production of epigrams with which they have so much in 
common ? In any case, it seems no accident that the three most 
original Anglo- Latin writers of the twelfth century — Geoffrey, 
Gerald, and Map — were Welshmen. The religious and didactic 
poems of the period are parallel in both tongues. Like the 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 73 

English clerks, the Welsh bards denounced the vices of the 
monks. From Layamon at the opening of the thirteenth to the 
Gawain-poet of the fourteenth century, Middle English alliterative 
writers reflect the influence of neighbourhood to Wales. The 
stories of Horn, of Tristram, and of Beves grew up in the 
"west country," where Gawain too had his home. 

Furthermore, the close contact of the Norse with the various 
races of western England in the twelfth century deserves emphasis. 
Not only in Ireland and the Western Isles, but also in Wales 
and England, the Norsemen had made settlements. " Sodor and 
Man," the Faroes and Orkneys, together with Iceland and Green- 
land, were controlled by the Norwegian Church. It was Nicholas 
Breakspeare (afterwards Adrian IV.) who in 11 52 brought the 
pallium to the first Archbishop of Norway and effected extensive 
changes in the Church there. When, as a result of his disputes 
with King Sverrir, the great Archbishop Eystein was forced to 
flee, he was supported by Henry II. in England for three years. 
After he made peace with Sverrir, in 1183, he began building the 
cathedral of Trondhjem in an Anglo-Norman style. Many 
Norsemen visited the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and 
Englishmen that of St. Olaf. The literary contributions of one 
country to the other, during the Norman period, were more on 
the part of the English to Norway than the reverse. Geoffrey 
of Monmouth's history, parts of which were versified in Norse, 
seems to have inspired the Historia Danica of Saxo Gram- 
maticus at the close of the twelfth century, the first im- 
portant Dano- Latin book. Yet Matthew Paris, who dwelt in 
Norway eighteen months, just after the death of the great 
historian Snorri Sturluson, and during the lifetime of Sturla, 
his most famous successor, was not uninfluenced by their mode 
of saga -narrative. It was not till the time of King Hakon 
Hakonsson (12 17-1262) that the floodgates were opened wide in 
Norway to French writings and original native production was 
thereby discouraged. 

The reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. were indeed " spacious 



74 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

times," like those of great Elizabeth. And from them echo 
sounds that still fill the air. The literature of the Angevin period 
is not merely prospective, but culminative-and definitive in value. 
Then not only the stories of Britain, France, and the North, but 
also those of Germany and Spain, were made part of universal 
literature. In the second half of the twelfth century took final 
shape the Nibelungenlied and the Cid. Then flourished also 
Walther von der Vogelweide and the minnesinger, and early in 
the thirteenth century the greatest of the mediaeval German 
writers of epic and romance. 

It is significant that much consideration was given during the 
same period to the study of metre. The oldest versified book on 
the subject by an Englishman is that of the Abbot Serlo r>i 
Wilton (c. 1 171), who illustrates by examples each metre he 
discusses. Whole poems are introduced into the Ars Rhythmica 
of John of Garland, an English-born professor of grammar at 
Paris, and a prolific maker of manuals and didactic poems. On 
the other hand, in the Nova Poetria of Geoffrey de Vinsauf (dedi- 
cated to Innocent III.), the author wrote his own examples, one 
of them being a lamentation on King Richard's death, in which 
he bitterly chided Friday, the day of that event : " O Veneris 
lacrimosa dies ! O sidus amarum ! " So begins the passage to 
which Chaucer jokingly alludes in the Nun's Priest's Tale. Evi- 
dently Chaucer did not take very seriously the work of this " dear, 
sovereign master," whom the poet's contemporaries esteemed. 
Its sterility is evident the moment it is placed in contrast with 
the invaluable works composed for a similar purpose at about the 
same time in Wales and Iceland, the Mabinogion and the Edda, 
the former anonymous, and containing in its extant redaction 
material of uneven date (1080- 12 60), the latter the individual 
production of that distinguished writer already mentioned, Snorri 
Sturluson (11241). The so-called "Four Branches" of the 
Mabinogio?i were collected into a cycle, for the advantage of the 
"mabinogs" or bardic apprentices, and supplied to them some 
of the traditional material of myth, genealogy, and heroic tale 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 75 

which they were required to be familiar with before they could 
be included in the close corporation of professional poets. With 
these was later grouped other information useful to novitiate 
bards, tales of romantic British history, of Arthur " Champion of 
Britain," and of Arthur "Flower of Knighthood," the whole 
forming a unique volume of fascinating narrative. 

The name Edda itself means " Ars Poetica," and is correctly 
applied only to the prose work of Snorri, not to the body of 
mythic and heroic lays (some of them written in the British 
Isles) that bears by mistake the same title, only with the epithet 
" Elder " attached. The prose Edda, more obviously than the 
Mabinogion, is a manual, and is divided into three parts : the 
Gyifaginning, a book of mythological tales, knowledge of which 
was necessary for the explanation of the recondite allusions so 
frequent in skaldic verse ; the Skaldskaparmdl, a poetic dictionary 
of words and phrases illustrated by numerous examples ; and a 
Hattatdl, an account, with specimens, of every sort of native 
metre known to the writer. Bede in the eighth century performed 
the (so far as we are concerned) thankless task of compiling an 
Ars Metrica of antique mould. Would that he had not thought 
it a work of supererogation to write about the Anglo-Saxon verse 
with which he and all his fellows were familiar ! Would that 
some learned person in the twelfth century had seen fit to 
collect specimens of the native English poetry then extant, 
that we might not be forced to mere surmise as to what sort and 
what amount existed ! Gerald, in his Description of Wales, 
commenting on the use of alliteration in his day, remarks : 

So much do the English and Welsh nations employ this ornament of words 
in all exquisite composition that no sentence is esteemed to be elegantly 
spoken, no oration to be otherwise than uncouth and unrefined, unless it be 
fully polished with the file of this figure. 

We should be glad to know what were the elegant alliterative 
w r orks in English with which Gerald was acquainted. 

The fact that in so many places "schools" of poetry existed, 
in which traditional artifices were practised, presupposes a general 



76 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

conscious movement towards the firm establishment of artistic 
principle. But this was attended by a deterioration of the 
creative faculty, and, whatever be the cause, it is certain that 
the English poets, as well as the bards, the skalds, the trouba- 
dours, and the minnesinger and meistersinger of the later 
thirteenth century, are not so original and free as their pre- 
decessors of the Augustan epoch of the Middle Age. 

The most interesting Anglo -Latin poems of the thirteenth 
century were political in theme, concerning particularly the wars 
of the Barons, the disputes with Scotland and France, the fall of 
Piers Gaveston, etc. In them are vigorously denounced the 
corruptions of the reigns of John and Henry III., the avarice 
and tyranny of the ecclesiastics, the pride and luxury of the 
nobles, and the failure of justice. 

Finally, before leaving our study of the literary tendencies of 
the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, it is 
important to note with how many writers of that age Chaucer was 
acquainted. He knew not only the chief works of his country- 
men already mentioned, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter Map, 
Nigel Wireker, Geoffrey de Vinsauf, and the Polycraticus of John 
of Salisbury, but also many of Continental authorship, such as the 
De Contemptu Mundi of Pope Innocent III., the Aurora of Peter 
de Riga, Canon of Rheims, the Historia Scholastica of the omni- 
verous Peter Comestor of Troyes, and the De Planctu Naturae 
and Antidaudianus of the Cistercian Alain de l'lsle. These were 
all famous books. The first, on the " Misery of Human Life," 
which Chaucer says that he himself translated, contributed much 
to Rolle's Prick of Conscience. The second, a poem of Biblical 
narrative, was freely used by Gower. Comestor was the chief 
source of the Cursor Mundi, a long metrical romance of 
religious history. And a great deal of material from Alain 
de l'lsle, along with the Consolatio Philosophiae of the still 
justly renowned Boethius, was made universally popular by Jean 
de Meung in the second part of the Roman de la Rose. Add 
to these the De Gemmis of Marbod, Bishop of Rennes (f 1124), 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 77 

which yielded Chaucer moralised information about precious 
stones, the Ahxandreid of Gautier de Chatillon (f 1201), which 
gave him knowledge of Alexander the Great, together with other 
works of varied character, and one will find it necessary to assess 
high the debt of our greatest mediaeval poet, as well as of his 
contemporaries, to the Latin literature of the period. Apart 
from the Gesta Romanorum, an anonymous collection of tales, 
and the Speculum Historiale, an immense and very erudite 
history of the world and man, by the Dominican friar Vincent 
de Beauvais, Chaucer seems to have been little served by the 
Latin treatises of Englishmen or Frenchmen of the thirteenth 
century. Then, however, the Italians Guido delle Colonne, 
Jacobus de Voragine (Varaggio), Albertano of Brescia, and some- 
what later Boccaccio, contributed Latin works on the Trojan 
war, lives of saints, an allegory of Meliboeus, and biographies of 
noted men and women, which he pored over with assiduity, 
possibly with glee, 



The thirteenth century — the age of scholasticism — was less 
generally productive of imaginative literature than the twelfth. 
It saw the firm establishment of universities, the elaborate arrange- 
ment of Christian systems of theology, the definite institution of 
parliamentary government, the superb culmination of Gothic 
architecture — as well as other great intellectual, administrative, 
and artistic achievements. But the literature then produced was 
in the main that of " knowledge," rather than of '' power." It 
was an age of research and inquiry, of scholarly accumulation 
and organisation of facts — a practical, industrious, utility. Ian, 
controversial age — the age of science. Then humanism yielded 
to academicism, and learning loaded the wings of fancy. Instead 
of romances, tales prevailed ; courtly lyrics recoiled before caustic 
satires ; the delicate gave way to the didactic in allegory and 
debate. To belles lettres little was added, while new editions, 



78 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

manuals, cyclopaedias, and other works of erudition appeared in 
abundance. 

In England, in no one of the three languages there spoken, 
did poetry attain to any height. The prestige of the nation had 
been snatched away ; her monarchs were no longer great world- 
figures ; their courts had ceased to be literary centres ; political 
anxieties harassed the minds of the people. Towards the close 
of the century numerous documents began to be written in the 
English vernacular, but almost none were original. Middle Eng- 
lish poetry of the period consists largely of translations, made for 
the benefit of the middle or lower classes, of works that had been 
accessible in French to gentlefolk for at least fifty years before. 
Even as the discarded styles of the city-bred regularly come to 
be accepted as standard fashions by villagers, so the plebeian 
English poets of the time of Edward I. arrayed themselves, as it 
were, in the fine garments which their patrician countrymen had 
laid aside ; and these their descendants continued to use until 
they were worn threadbare. 

" The Italians have the Papacy ; the Germans have the 
Empire; and the French have learning." These oft-quoted 
words state concisely the position of Europe throughout the new 
century. 

The Papacy was the bane of the era. If the Church was a 
blessing, it was in spite of the Roman curia. If Christianity 
became a more living force than for a long while before in the 
amelioration of the griefs of humanity, it was in spite of the 
example of the pontiffs. Greed and avarice, bigotry and narrow- 
mindedness pride, envy, and all uncharitableness, memorialise 
their sony fight for political power. Never was Rome's worldly 
lnnuuice in England greater ; yet never were her best champions 
there more distraught by the course of her policy. Never did 
England contribute so much money to the Popes ; yet never did 
English ecclesiastics more openly and firmly condemn their acts. 

The century opened with the great Innocent III. in power at 
Rome, carrying everything before him with a master hand. It 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 79 

was he who instigated the fourth Crusade, gave authority to wipe 
out the heretic Albigenses, forced John to acknowledge his 
authority, deposed Otho IV. and nominated Frederick II., King 
of Sicily, as head of the Holy Roman Empire. It was he who 
presided at the famous Lateran Council of 12 15, when, more 
than at any other time, the Church was supreme over the State. 
Yet Innocent's efforts were not justified by spiritual results. With 
humiliation he saw those who set out to free Jerusalem turn home 
content with the sack of Constantinople. With grief he observed 
how the Albigensian Crusade lead to the brutal massacre of 
harmless people and the fanatical devastation of peaceful regions. 
With anger he protested against the way in which Stephen 
Langton, his nominee to the archbishopric of Canterbury, sup- 
ported the hostile barons against his vassal John. And we can 
imagine that his discomfiture would have been complete had he 
lived to see his ward Frederick defiantly opposing Rome in so 
fierce a conflict that it taxed her resources to the utmost before 
she finally won — in the eyes of men. 

The German Emperor Frederick II., the grandson of the 
great Barbarossa (f 1190), was known among his contemporaries 
as " the marvel of the world," and he unquestionably surpassed 
every other ruler of the time in power and intelligence. Much 
might be said to his discredit, but, as even his particular foe 
Pope Gregory IX. admitted, he appeared to have " the gift of 
knowledge and of perfect imagination." He maintained a brilliant 
court in Sicily, to which he invited men of learning and men of 
letters from every land. He encouraged the study of science, the 
practice of poetry, and the advance of architecture and other arts. 
He founded the University of Naples, and fostered medicine at 
Salerno. He visited Jerusalem, and associated on friendly terms 
with Saracen rulers. Much Arabic lore was through his aid dis- 
seminated in Europe. He wrote a treatise on falconry and some 
troubadour verse. Of him Dante speaks in his De Vulgari 
Eloquio as follows : " The illustrious heroes, Frederick Caesar and 
his noble son Manfred, followed after elegance and scorned what 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



was mean ; so that all the best compositions of the time came out 
of their court. Thus, because their royal throne was in Sicily, 
all the poems of our predecessors in the vulgar tongue are called 
Sicilian." Frederick died in 1251, Manfred in 1266; Dante was 
born in 1265. 

Among scholars in the thirteenth century Paris was known as 
" the mill where the world's corn is ground, and the oven where 
its bread is baked." The University is called " the parent of the 
sciences " in its magna charta, a bull issued by Gregory IX., in 
1 23 1, confirming masters and pupils in the privileges of their 
association. Stephen Langton was its Chancellor before he went 
to England, and nearly all his contemporaries distinguished for 
learning had been students there. Throughout the century Paris 
remained the supreme intellectual centre of Europe, at which all 
" doctors " aspired to teach. Of the leading English schoolmen, 
Roger Bacon was the only one who was not, for a time at least, 
a professor at Paris ; yet he took his doctor's degree there and 
lived there many years. Great rivalries existed in the city between 
teachers of the same subject ; bitter controversies arose between 
the regular and the secular clergy ; endless disputes were carried 
on between monks of old and new types, between mystics and 
rationalists, the orthodox and the heterodox, philosophers and 
men of science. According to Cardinal Gaetani, who afterwards 
became Pope Boniface VIII., scholars " troubled the universe " : 
they were presumptuous to the brink of folly. The College de 
Sprbonne was founded about 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, chaplain 
of St. Louis, in the interest of secular learning. Before 1300 the 
quartier latin of Paris had been definitely established on Mont 
St. Genevieve, by the location there of many other colleges like 
the Sorbonne — places of residence rather than of instruction, but 
formidable to antagonistic prelates as centres of organised demo- 
cratic influence. 

The large difference in spirit between the universities of the 
thirteenth century and the more irregular schools of the twelfth 
was due mainly to new methods of dialectics employed in the 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



study of Aristotle, most of whose works were now for the first time 
accessible to the Western world. The Organon, or " Instrument 
of Reasoning," had been familiar to John of Salisbury, but not 
till about 1 200 were the physics, metaphysics, and indeed nearly 
all the peripatetic encyclopaedia, introduced into France. In- 
junctions against reading Aristotle's works were issued in 1207 
zypd 1 2 15, but these were seldom enforced, and in 1231 were 
practically abrogated. It was the constant endeavour of scholars 
to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Christian dogma. 
The Englishman Alexander of Hales (f 1245) was one of 
the first to attempt the difficult task of making Aristotle 
orthodox. The German Albertus Magnus (1 193- 1280) and 
the Italian Thomas Aquinas (1221-1274) strove to assimilate 
his doctrine where that was possible. Alongside of the works 
of the master, the great commentaries of his Mohammedan 
exegetes Avicenna (Ibn Sina, f 1037), and especially Averroes 
(Ibn Rushd, 11198), were the battle-ground of a host of dis- 
putants. " Low down is he among the fools who affirms or 
denies without distinction," said Dante, and his contemporaries 
took heed not to err in this regard. Subtlety was expected of 
every theologian, and by its means seemingly impassable gulfs were 
spanned. The scholastics had the grandiose ambition to arrange 
all knowledge according to law and order, while they accom- 
modated ancient philosophy to Christianity. In their hands 
Faith sought the support of Reason, and Theology wedded her- 
self to Science in a marriage of convenience. 

Richard de Bury describes Aristotle as " all-wise," " the prince 
of philosophers," " the Phcebus of the schools," " the sun of 
science," — " a man of gigantic intellect, in whom it pleased Nature 
to try how much of reason she could bestow upon mortality, and 
whom the Most High made only a little lower than the angels, 
. . . [the author] of those wonderful volumes which the whole 
world can hardly contain." Dante saw him among the great 
spirits in the noble castle of philosophy, which was entered 
through the gates of the Seven Liberal Arts — "the Master of 

G 



82 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

those who know, seated amid the philosophic family ; all regard 
him, all do him honour." " People were there with slow and 
grave eyes, of great authority in their looks ; they spoke seldom, 
and with soft voices." The enthusiasm for Aristotle among the 
learned of the thirteenth century amounted to little less than 
intoxication. He above all was responsible for the zeal in abstract 
speculation, and thus, indirectly, for the passion of controversy 
that then mightily prevailed. 

The same century, notwithstanding, witnessed the upgrowth 
of a most important spiritual revival — that of the friars. Though 
averse to the institution of any more orders of monks, Innocent 
III. could not well refuse to recognise the new associations of 
earnest men who were eager to embrace poverty and discomfort 
in daily service for Christ and the Church. And, once organised, 
the mendicant friars leapt into prominence everywhere. Speedily 
they won the hearts of the people and the approbation of the 
better clergy. Speedily it came to be that nearly all the high 
thinking, as well as the voluntary plain living, of the time was 
done by them. Yet the history of the friars offers remarkable 
contrasts between plan and outcome. The first purpose of the 
Spaniard Dominic and his disciples was to achieve general 
orthodox fidelity to Christian dogma ; but this required them to 
sift evidence, explain conflicts, reconcile the old and new in 
accepted truth. Therefore, while primarily preachers to the 
people, they were of necessity protagonists of philosophic theory 
among the learned. Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas 
were Dominican friars. 

The Franciscans, on the other hand, had at first eschewed in 
tellectual training. They saw no advantage in book-learning, bu 
were altogether intent on alleviating human suffering by practical 
physical aid. No one could join their brotherhood in full mem 
bership who was unwilling to render personal service to lepers 
Yet quickly they too found it expedient to change front. Minis 
tration on the sick demanded knowledge of medicine ; a large 
organisation required leaders trained in affairs and skilled in 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 83 

argument ; it was found necessary to provide schools for their 
novices, and, to fortify their instruction, the best equipment of 
instruments and books had to be obtained. Considering the 
principles of St. Francis, it is truly strange that such a man as 
Roger Bacon should be the most conspicuous Englishman of this 
Order. To this Order also^ belonged the great mystic Bonaven- 
tura, who, in 1265, was called, but in vain, to the archbishopric 
of York. 

The first friars were self-sacrificing and spiritual almost 
beyond compare in any age. Little more than a century had 
passed before all four Orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, 
and Augustinians) could be accused of 

Preaching the people for profit of the wame (belly), 
And glosing the Gospel, as them good liked. 

"Many of these master friars," added Langland, "may clothe 
them at their own liking, for their money and their merchandise 
go' together; for since Charity hath been a chapman, and chief 
confessor of lords, many wonderful things have happened in a 
few years. Except Holy Church and they hold together better, 
the greatest mischief on earth will speedily arise." 

Friars, Friars, wo ye be, 
ministri malorum ! 
For many a man's soul bring ye 
infernorum. 



So runs part of a fourteenth-century song. " Freres and feendes 
ben but lyte a-sonder " was the opinion of Chaucer's Summoner. 

The friars settled at Oxford and Cambridge almost im- 
mediately after their arrival in England (1220-24), an d there 
established schools, which soon rivalled those of earlier secular 
foundation both for instruction and research. The first rector of 
the Franciscan school at Oxford was Robert Grosseteste, who 
was appointed to that office in 1224, and continued to occupy it 
until 1235, when he was consecrated Bishop of Lincoln. At his 
death, in 1253, his fine library passed to the seminary at Oxford, 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



which had all along been a particular object of his love. Grosse- 
teste was a prolific scholar. The list of works attributed to him 
in Pegge's life covers twenty-five closely printed quarto pages. 
It comprises numerous theological treatises, philosophic essays, 
commentaries on classical writers, and practical works on such 
subjects as husbandry. He knew Hebrew, translated from the 
Greek, and wrote poetry in French. His letters show him to 
have been intimate with all the leaders of his time. He was a 
man of humane tastes, fond of music and minstrelsy, and provided 
with a large fund of common-sense. His courage was fortunately 
sufficient to make fruitful his desire to reform the abuses of the 
monasteries in his jurisdiction, and to embolden him to deny the 
worldly claims of Rome. Driven to exasperation by the impor- 
tunate demands of Innocent IV. for more and more money and 
benefices, he made inquiry of what sums had already been diverted 
from English use in that way, and found that alien clerks then 
drew a revenue of some ^41,000 — three times as much as the 
income of the King. When, finally, he was ordered to appoint 
the Pope's nephew (a youth, not in orders, who had no intention 
of even visiting England) to the next vacant prebend of Lincoln, 
he bluntly refused, in words which are astonishingly bold : 

It cannot be that the most holy apostolic see, to which is given by our 
Lord all power, as the Apostle witnesseth, " to edification and not to destruc- 
tion," can either command or enjoin anything so hateful as this, or can make 
any attempt at such a thing. For this would evidently amount to a falling- 
away, a corruption, and misusing of its most holy and plenary power, a com- 
plete departure from the throne of glory of Jesus Christ, and a very close 
sitting side by side with the two principles of darkness in the seat of the pesti- 
lence of hellish penalties. . . . Filially and obediently, I decline to obey, I 
oppose, I rebel. 

Grosseteste kept up his struggle against papal spoliation to the 
end, and his dying appeal was to "the nobles of England and the 
citizens of London, and the community of the whole kingdom " 
(notable words), to arouse them to united resistance to alien 
aggression. And Matthew Paris, who as a monk resented Grosse- 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 85 

teste's reforming zeal while the latter lived, nevertheless paid him 
this tribute, after describing the manner of his decease : 

So the saintly Robert II., Bishop of Lincoln, passed away from the exile 
of this world, which he never loved, at this manor of Buckden, on the night 
of St. Denis's day. He had been an open rebuker of pope and king; the 
corrector of bishops, the reformer of monks, the instructor of the clergy, the 
support of scholars, the preacher of the people, the persecutor of the incon- 
tinent, a careful reader of the Scriptures, the hammer of the Romans, whom 
he despised. At the table of bodily food he was liberal, plentiful, courteous, 
cheerful, affable ; at the table of spiritual food devout, tearful, penitent ; as a 
prelate sedulous, venerable, indefatigable. 

Grosseteste was closely attached to Simon de Montfort, and 
the guardian of his son. Simon is not a literary figure, but the 
mention of his name will serve to recall — what it is well to keep 
in mind when considering the conditions that then affected poetic 
production — the civil struggles during the reign of Henry III., 
the battles of Lewes and Evesham, and all the distracting turmoil 
of a troublous time when England was but slowly learning the 
value of unity of sentiment amongst all classes of the people, and 
coming to understand the value of her national heritage. Simon 
was exalted in heroism and became the subject of patriotic song. 

He is called de Montfort ; 

He is the mount, he is the strong ; 

He hath great chivalry. 
This is true and I agree : 
He loveth right and hateth wrong ; 

He shall have the mastery. 

So we read in an Anglo-French Song of the Barons. And part of 
an Anglo-Latin Song of Lewes runs as follows : 

They call Simon a seducer and a traitor 
But deeds show and prove him true ; 
Traitors fall way in necessity ; 
They who fly not death, are in verity. 

The learned Adam Marsh (f c. 1257) was intimate with both 



86 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

Grosseteste and Simon. Like the former, he was a Franciscan teacher 
at Oxford, a man of piety and enlightenment, as his numerous 
letters bear witness. His former fame as a theologian seems to 
have had a sound basis in various works of comment and exegesis. 
He and Grosseteste were lauded as "perfect in all wisdom," 
"the greatest clerks in the world," by one, their pupil, whose 
renown to-day far exceeds theirs — the illustrious Roger Bacon 
(i 2 14-1292). Roger Bacon was a scholar of astonishingly great 
attainments, endowed with a keenness of vision that marks him 
as unique among men of his age. He is now specially celebrated 
as " the father of experimental science," but he perhaps deserves 
higher praise for the universality of his knowledge and the penetra- 
tion of his judgments. He was not only a physicist, a chemist, 
and a mathematician, but also a linguist, a man of letters, and a 
philosopher. He wrote a Greek and a Hebrew grammar ; he was 
familiar with the Latin classics and the books of the Arabs ; 
Chaldee also he thought necessary to any one who would advance 
far in science. Still more remarkable, however, are Bacon's 
opinions of the scholars and the schools of his day. Some 01 
these are extremely haughty and patronising ; some, it is pos- 
sible, are unjust ; but all are supported by definite accusations ; 
and it is surprising how closely they accord with those of modern 
critics. Never has the vanity and futility of scholasticism been 
more plainly exposed ; never has the advantage of experiment over 
mere speculation in scientific study been more strongly set forth ; 
seldom has the domain of knowledge been more lucidly descried. 
Yet it is almost by accident that we are in possession of the fruits 
of Bacon's thought. With great difficulty he secured an oppor- 
tunity to write. The superiors of the Order which he had been 
indiscreet enough to enter, viewing his recondite researches with 
suspicion, kept him in confinement for several years at Paris, and 
deprived him even of pen and ink. It required the explicit com- 
mand of Pope Clement IV., about 1265, to enable him to pro- 
duce his chief works. The first of them, the Opus Maius, an 
encyclopaedia of facts concerning the sciences, was finished in the 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 87 

incredibly short time of fifteen months, and was followed im- 
mediately by his Opus Minus, a summary of it with elaboration 
of certain parts, and an Opus Tertium, which served as an intro- 
duction to the whole. 

It is evident that a large body of scholars together with 
Bacon at Paris regarded the achievement of such men as 
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in a light quite 
different from that which has for so many centuries consecrated 
their memory. Particularly did they reproach the theologians for 
their ignorance of natural science, which, as a result of the great 
impetus given to that study from Arabic treatises now newly made 
familiar in the West, seemed to them destined to revolutionise the 
manner and object of scholarly research. Several centuries of 
further inquiry have rendered valueless to us most of the conclu- 
sions that Bacon and his contemporaries reached, and have caused 
such modern scientific men as are without imagination and 
sympathy to ridicule the ignorance they displayed, — whereas the 
monuments of philosophy erected by the speculative schoolmen 
still seem a marvel to metaphysicians. But natural science was 
then in its infancy, and we should feel nought but admiration for 
those with visions clear enough to insist on its importance. 

Among Bacon's studies were magic, alchemy, and astrology ; 
but these he pursued as a seeker for truth, impatient of the 
superstitions and shams that in his time were spread by many 
ignorant clerks and debased jugglers for their own profit. His 
superior knowledge of the secret processes of nature gave rise, 
however, to the absurd idea that he was seduced by spirits of the 
black art, and this idea kept on accumulating belief until his 
name became more familiar to men as a magician than as a phil- 
osopher. In the reign of Elizabeth a History of Friar Bacon 
appeared, containing nought but a succession of the fantastic 
marvels that he was imagined to have achieved. On this book 
Robert Greene based his Honourable History of Friar Bacon and 
Friar Bongay, which, " as played by Her Majesty's servants," 
was printed in 1594. Of Bacon's supposed miracles the most 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



notorious, perhaps, was the making of a brazen head " by the which 
he would have walled England around with brass." Before him 
Pope Sylvester II. was reputed to have fashioned a similar brazen 
head, which served as an oracle ; and it was fabled that Albertus 
Magnus framed another which talked so freely that Thomas 
Aquinas, while Albert's pupil, broke it into pieces angrily because 
it disturbed his study. Even Grosseteste was credited by his 
countryman Gower with a like achievement. And " Old Hodge 
Bacon and Bob Grostead " are mentioned together in Hudibras. 
Michael Scott, who died in 1291, just a year before Bacon, 
a learned man and much travelled, who was honoured by 
Frederick II. and wrote important scientific treatises, appears 
in The Lay of the Last Minstrel as 

A wizard, of such dreaded fame, 
That when, in Salamanca's cave, 
Him listed his magic wand to wave, 

The bells would ring in Notre Dame ! 

Likewise in the thirteenth century (as appears from the 
works of Gervase of Tilbury, Alexander Neckham, and Vin- 
cent de Beauvais), as well as in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
(witness the references in Gower, Lydgate, and Hawes), the poet 
Virgil was represented as an enchanter, and many strange 
tales were told of his wonder-working power. These, too, were 
embodied in a late prose romance called Virgilins, which 
explained how his marvels were done " by witchcraft and necro- 
mancy through the help of the devils of hell." One of the most 
celebrated of Virgil's exploits was also ascribed to Bacon, namely, 
the fashioning of a wonderful perspective glass. Of it Gower 
writes as follows : 

When Rome stood in noble plight, 
Virgil, which was then parfite (perfect), 
A mirror made by his clergy, 
And set it in the lownes ee (eye), 
Of marble, on a pillar without, 
That they for thirty miles about, 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



By day and eek also by night, 
In that mirror beholde might 
Their enemies, if any were. 

The narrative in full may be found in the Oriental collection of 
tales known as The Seven Sages, which was current in Latin, 
French, and English redactions of the thirteenth century. 

To this " Roman mirror " Chaucer alludes in the Squire's 
Tale, where he pictures the crowd considering the mirror of 
glass of like properties, which was one of the gifts sent by the 
King of Arabia and India to Cambynskan (Genghis Khan) of 
Tartary. The poet may have been familiar with the account of 
China by the Venetian traveller Marco Polo, who in 1275 visited 
the court of Kublai Khan, and greatly whetted the curiosity of 
Westerners concerning the Orient by what he wrote on his return. 
Chaucer's Franklin's Tale also turns on feats of magic. The 
magician of Orleans whom the squire Aurelius consults was able 
to effect most remarkable illusions, even to making the rocks on 
the coast of Brittany disappear without trace. • This resembled 
an achievement ascribed by Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Celtic 
Merlin, that of transporting the Giant's Dance from Ireland to 
Salisbury Plain. In the thirteenth century Merlin's fame as a 
necromancer was at its height, and naturally enough so, for all 
the erudite of the time were absorbed in the new revelations of 
Oriental magic, and their preoccupations affected the thought of 
the people at large. 

Spenser, following earlier traditions, represents Merlin as 
making a glassy globe which showed the approach of enemies 
and discovered treason. Still more interesting is his account of 
how the enchanter started to erect a wall of brass around 
Caermarthen, and how, being suddenly called away by the Lady 
of the Lake, he commanded his " thousand sprights " to bring the 
work to " perfect end." 

In the meanetime, througn that false ladie's traine, 
He was surpris'd, and buried under beare, 



go ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

Ne ever to his worke returned againe ; 
Nath'lesse those fiends may not their work forbeare, 
So greatly his commandement they feare, 
But there doe toyle and traveile day and night, 
Untill that brasen wall they up doe reare. 

It will be noticed that, like those of Virgil, Merlin's helpers 
are "fiends." Merlin himself was reputed to be the son of a 
fiend. In the imagination of many, profound acquaintance 
with the secrets of nature was tantamount to familiarity with 
the devil. Even in the age of the Reformation Dr. Faustus 
(fi538?) and Paracelsus (11541) were anathematised as asso- 
ciates of Satan, probably because sceptical of religious truth as 
then accepted by the faithful. The ignorant and timorous clergy 
who in the thirteenth century denounced the scientific researches 
of the time, were stirred "to opposition by two other reasons ; 
first, because such studies had been started by Mohammedans ; 
and second, because they were eagerly prosecuted by Jews. Were 
not Europeans even then carrying on crusades to free the Holy 
City from Saracen control ? And was it not true, as Chaucer's 
Prioress felt, that in the hearts of Jews "our firste fo, the 
serpent. Sathanas . . . hath his waspes nest"? In 1255 Little 
Hugh of Lincoln was supposed to have been murdered by 
English Jews ; and Matthew Paris, at the end of his graphic 
description of the outcome of that event, remarks : " The other 
Jews who shared in the guilt, to the number of 994, were taken 
to London and imprisoned there ; and if any Christians pitied 
them, they were only dry tears which their rivals the Caorsines 
[Christian usurers] shed." Matthew had probably in mind the 
"dry tears" which his great contemporary Snorri of Iceland 
represents the malicious Loki as having wept at the death of the 
innocent Baldr, who, as pictured in the Eddas, resembles the 
Christ. In 1264 there was a fierce slaughter of the Jews in 
London. In 1290 over 16,000 were expelled from the land. 

Evidently it seemed to Christian sciolists and zealots lhat the 
" higher critics " of the period were striving to subvert the faith. 



rr ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 91 

This assumption, of course, was unwarranted. But are not 
modern critics equally dull who regard the fables of magic that 
were then spread primarily as stories, "for such as delight in 
novelties," as affording ground to inveigh seriously against the 
Middle Ages as an era of intellectual darkness ? Grant that 
men formerly were more credulous than we in matters concerning 
which knowledge had not yet been acquired, they were not more 
unenlightened in other regards. On this point Charles Lamb 
speaks wisely in his Essay on Witches : 

We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools, 
for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed 
of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible world we find them to have 
been as rational and shrewd to detect an historic anomaly as ourselves. But 
when once the invisible world was supposed to be opened, and the lawless 
agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of 
fitness, or proportion — of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable 
absurd — could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission of any 
particular testimony ? That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their 
waxen images consumed before a fire — that corn was lodged and cattle lamed 
— that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of the forests — or that 
spits and kettles only danced a fearful innocent vagary about some rustic's 
kitchen when no wind was stirring — -were all equally probable where no law 
of agency was understood. . . . There is no law to judge of the lawless, or 
canon by which a dream may be criticised. 

Of the maker of the steed of brass Chaucer says : 

He waytede many a constellacioun 
Er he hadde don this operacioun. 

And it is a fact that astrology went hand in hand with magic. 
Yet here again it is worth while to remark that while many rogues 
(like Dousterswivel in The Antiquary) preyed by feigned know- 
ledge on the credulity of simple people (simple people still exist !), 
there was much praiseworthy study of the stars. 

The English men of science, says Mr. Robert Steele, were among 
the first in Europe to receive and spread the knowledge of astronomy, and 
they speedily came to the forefront. The best known of them all is John of 
Halifax, whose treatise on astronomy, founded on the Arabic of Alfaragan, 



92 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

exists in innumerable MSS., and ran through sixty editions in the first century 
of printing ; while the works of forty writers, nearly all Oxford men, remain 
to attest the fruitfulness of this period [1270- 1 340]. But the theoretical 
astronomy of the day was fundamentally wrong, and had to be proved so by 
centuries of toil. 

Chaucer, in his Canon's Yeoman's Tale, brilliantly exposes 
the deceptions practised by certain devotees of the "slidying 
(slippery) science," and no one knew better than he of the 
"elvish craft" of " multiplying." He mentions Hermes, "father 
of philosophers," the inventor of alchemy, and Arnold of the 
Newe Toun (Arnoldus de Villa Nova), a thirteenth-century 
authority, whose " Rosarie " treated of that theme. He points 
out further that " this science and this cunning " was of the 
" Secree of Secrees," alluding to a popular treatise of the same 
epoch, attributed to Aristotle ; and he doubtless was acquainted 
with the great encyclopaedia De Proprietatibus Reru?n by Bar- 
tholomews Anglicus, of which we shall later speak. 

Roger Bacon thought that astronomy was " the better part " of 
medicine. In the statutes of New College, Oxford, given in 1387, 
medicine and astronomy are mentioned as one and the same 
science. Being a good practitioner, the Doctor in the Canterbury 
Tales was "grounded in astronomye." He had read the chief 
medical works then in repute. 

Wei knew he the olde Esculapius, 
And Deiscorides, and eek Rufus ; 
Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galien ; 
Serapion, Razis, and Avicen ; 
Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn ; 
Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn. 

Of these authorities six were Greeks. Aesculapius, god of medicine, 
was the son of Apollo; Hippocrates (Ypocras), the most illus- 
trious of physicians, lived in the fourth century B.C.; Dioscorides, 
Rufus, and Galen flourished in the first and second, and John 
of Damascus in the eighth centuries of our era. Rhasis, Haly, 
Serapion, and Avicenna were all Arabs of the tenth and eleventh 



ii ANGLO -LATIN LITERATURE 93 

centuries. Averroes, the famous Moorish scholar, died in 1198. 
Constantinus Afer, born at Carthage, and monk of Monte Cassino, 
was one of the founders of the school of Salerno in the eleventh 
century. But the last three were Englishmen, who all wrote 
medical books with florid titles : Gilbert, of whom little is known, 
compiled about 1290 a Laurea Anglicana ; Bernard Gordon, who 
studied and taught at Montpellier, a Liliiwi Medicinae ; and John 
Gatesden, professor at Oxford, a Rosa Anglicana. The two latter 
are supposed to have died about the same time (in 131 7 ?). 

The Doctor's " study was but little on the Bible." Dante put 
Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, Avicenna, and Averroes in 
limbo, the first circle of hell, " containing the spirits of those who 
lived virtuously, but without faith in Christ." And we are 
reminded that much scepticism prevailed in the thirteenth 
century, which greatly concerned the pious of the Church. This 
was, of course, nothing new. Far from being purely " the ages 
of faith," as they are so often described by ecclesiologists and 
romancers, the Middle Ages throughout were disturbed by 
sceptical inquiry. In the time of the audacious Abelard, we 
recall, was written Aucassin et Nicolete, in which appears this 
striking passage, the speech of the hero when he was warned 
that his amorous passion might keep him out of Paradise : 

In Paradise what have I to win ? Therein I seek not to enter, but only 
to have Nicolete, my sweet lady that I love so well. For into Paradise go 
none but such folk as I shall tell thee now : Thither go these same old priests, 
and halt old men and maimed, who all day and night cower continually before 
the altars, and in the crypts ; and such folk as wear old amices and old clouted 
frocks, and naked folk and shoeless, and covered with sores, perishing of 
hunger and thirst, and of cold and of little ease. These be they that go into 
Paradise ; with them have I nought to do. But into Hell would I fain go ; 
for into Hell fare the goodly clerks, and goodly knights that fall in tourneys 
and great wars, and stout men at arms, and all men noble. With these would 
I gladly go. And thither pass the sweet ladies and courteous that have two 
lovers, or three, and their lords also thereto. Thither goes the gold, and the 
silver, and cloth of vair, and cloth of gris, and harpers, and makers [poets], 
and the prince of this world. With these I would gladly go, let me but have 
with me Nicolete, my sweetest lady. 



94 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

It was the heresies of Peter Waldo, of Alby in Provence, 
that gave a pretext for the Albigensian Crusade. Later in the 
thirteenth century existed a widespread Averroist cult, the leader 
of which, Siger de Brabant, was accused of heresy in 1277 and 
secretly done away with. " Satellites of Satan " the Averroists 
were called by Martin IV. ; but they long continued to perpetuate 
the heresies of Aristotle and his pagan commentators. Indeed, 
considering the ferment of free thought in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, it is a wonder why the Reformation was so 
long delayed. The libido sciendi was never more rife. 

An attitude of compromise is apparent in the teachings of the 
most notable philosopher of Europe at the close of the century, 
namely, John Duns Scotus : he was orthodox in faith, and accepted 
as final the words of the Bible concerning the questions of the 
soul ; but he was a sceptic in all that came within the sphere of 
the mind, and held almost a pantheistic view of God. The 
history of the life of this great scholastic is thus summed up in 
the inscription on his tomb at Cologne : " Scotia me genuit ; 
Anglia me suscepit ; Gallia me docuit ; Colonia me tenet." He 
was born, it appears, about 1265, at Dunse in Berwickshire, 
Scotland, was a fellow of Merton College, early joined the 
Franciscan Order, in 1301 was chosen professor of theology at 
Oxford, went to Paris in 1304, became regent of the University 
there, and died, during a visit to Cologne, in 1308. He led his 
Order in their defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Con- 
ception of the Virgin, which the Dominicans had attacked ; he 
protested against the intemperate admiration of Aristotle ; he 
advocated an out-and-out realism in philosophic theory. In 
argument he showed extraordinary acumen, and his criticism of 
prevailing views was a wholesome deterrent to theological one- 
sidedness. His teaching met with immense success both at 
Oxford and at Paris, and he became the head of a great body of 
disciples, who disputed concerning his doctrines without end or 
result. 

Duns Scotus's death marks the passing of the great era of 



ii ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 95 

scholasticism. In England, as we shall see, several of his pupils 
carried on his work brilliantly ; but their dialectics were more and 
more turned to social and political problems of general interest. 
On the Continent henceforward the procedure of logic steadily 
degenerated, subtlety passing into sophistry, keenness into 
casuistry, and ingenuity into finesse. The argumentation of 
the later schoolmen in both England and France is, for the 
most part, mechanical and conventional, without any of the sure 
grasp of fact, the lofty power of imagination, and the idealistic 
vision of the great leaders of the thirteenth century. 

This century, famous for the colossal monuments of the 
intellect that it raised, was also preeminent for magnificent archi- 
tecture; and it is one and the same form of genius that thus 
variously manifested itself. Recently, Mr. E. S. Prior has written, 
in a History of Gothic Art in England, as follows : 

It was the logic of the Parisian that brought to his Gothic both its ex- 
treme excellence and its decay : the science of vault construction fell in with 
his bent. The idea once having attracted him, his logical faculty compelled 
him to follow it to the end. His vaults rose higher and higher ; his poise 
and counterpoise, his linkage of thrust and strain grew more complicated and 
daring, until material mass disappeared from his design, and his cathedrals 
were chain-works of articulated stone pegged to the ground by pinnacles. 
But in the thirteenth century he had a spirit of art that was a power in him 
as great as his logic ; that his art could not assimilate such science showed 
how great the endowment was. Combined they advanced from Notre Dame 
to Amiens, from Reims to Beauvais. Beauvais was magnificent, but it leapt 
too high ! The aspiration of design had soared beyond the conditions of 
matter. Reason had to assert itself, but thus it was that the logical motive 
quenched the artistic. Experiment had given place to knowledge, and archi- 
tecture for a time became a repetition of stereotyped excellences, the stock-in- 
trade of guilds of constructionists. 

The architecture of England in the thirteenth century con- 
trasts markedly with that of France, and the reasons for the un- 
likeness, as clearly stated by Mr. Prior in the following paragraph, 
are of interest to students of the vernacular literature in the two 
countries during the same period, for in both cases they are the 
same : 



96 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

It is the continuance of monastic direction in our English style which really 
gives the explanation of its want of sympathy with the French. In the lie 
de France art had grown up under a peculiar social stimulus. Philip 
Augustus had united with the communes against the abbots, and the great 
cathedrals were built in symbol of the confederation. A school of secular 
artists arose ; masons and sculptors, in whose enormous works the whole 
people had a share. Cathedral-building became the passion of the community 
rising in revolt against the pressure of monastic domination. Thus the great 
"French Gothic" was " laic," but the English remained continuously 
" cleric," and the one borrowed but little from the other. On the Continent 
the " laic " school, superseding the " monastic," produced those acknowledged 
masters of the craft — who built all over Europe on the French model. But 
in England, save in the design of Westminster Abbey, there is hardly any- 
thing that suggests a consciousness of the great works on the other side of the 
Channel. The monastic was still the force in our architecture. Just as at 
its beginning this had been Benedictine, so afterwards the vigour of reformed 
monasticism carried it onward, but always with an increasing leaven of the 
native Saxon heritage that had come to it through the Celtic memories of the 
first British Church. 

Thirteenth-century vernacular literature in England was also 
" cleric," while that of France was " laic " ; and the two were in 
the main unsympathetic. There is very little indeed of Middle 
English production before 1300 which may not properly be called 
monastic : heroic and pious tales, legends, lives of saints, metrical 
chronicles, religious and didactic verse, books of edification and 
instruction. Even the French romances that began to be freely 
translated in the reign of Edward I. were revised in a religious 
spirit. From Layamon at the opening to Robert of Gloucester 
at the close of the century, there is hardly anything that can be 
called " laic " in the sense used by the writers on architecture. 
There are no authors in England to correspond to the aristocratic 
Joinville and Philippe de Beaumanoir, to the court minstrel 
Adam de la Halle, or the vagrant pamphleteer Rustebeuf, not to 
mention the bourgeois satirist Jean de Meung (f 1305), surnamed 
" the Voltaire of his age." We have only an occasional fabliau 
like Dame Sirith, only a rare bit of light-hearted satire like The 
Land of C okay gne, only a single snatch (The Fox and the Wolf) 
from that inimitable work the Roman de Renart. The Roman de 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 97 

la Rose must await the next century to be translated in either 
part. The great prose romances of love-gallantry, which were the 
last French fruits of the chivalric impulse, seem hardly to have 
been known among the unrefined of England. " The monastic 
was still the force " in our literature. 

Yet this native production was not devoid of merit. Layamon 
is an improvement on Wace. The Owl and the Nightingale 
surpasses any debate of the sort in French. Some of the lyrics 
of the period are remarkable for a sweet sincerity and a pleasing 
spontaneity due to unfettered art. Here we have lesser counter- 
parts to the massive Norman-French cathedrals, to the noble 
chapter-houses and cloisters, to the lovely lady-chapels, and the 
picturesque parish churches, that in England have a distinction 
and a charm quite their own. The Ancren Riwle was probably 
written by the Bishop Poore under whose direction Salisbury 
Cathedral was begun. The one is as distinctly the most perfect 
work of Early (Middle) English prose as the latter is the most 
perfect cathedral in the Early English style. Both are restrained 
and harmonious as no other productions of similar kind. And 
the Ancreti Riwle is as characteristically and sympathetically 
English, in contrast with such a careful work of the " domaine 
royale" as the Somme des Vices et des Vertus, composed in 1279 
by Friar Lorens at the command of Philip III. of France, as the 
Cathedral of Salisbury (1220-58) is characteristically and sym- 
pathetically English in contrast with that of Amiens (1220-82), 
though the latter is grander and more tectonically correct. 

It is not by accident that over the portal to the beautiful 
chapter-house of Salisbury were carved realistic figures of the 
Vices and Virtues (including " the smiler with the knife beneath 
his cloak"). The sculptures of the noble Cathedral of Wells, 
inspired by the genius of the English Joscelin (f 1242), reveal the 
preoccupation of others than men of letters with the past history 
of the nation. Even if they are the work of Continental artists, 
they nevertheless recall the achievements of English ecclesiastics 
and kings. As " sermons in stone," they correspond to con- 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



temporary pleadings on parchment. Unhappily no such advance 
was made by sculptors in England as that which followed the 
revival in Italy by the well-known Niccola of Pisa (f 1278). No 
painters arose to vie with the Florentine Cimabue (1240-r. 1302), 
the so-called "father of modern painting," or with Giotto (1276- 
1337), his more illustrious pupil, the designer of famous frescoes 
and the builder of the great campanile at Florence. But English 
architects continued to erect structures of wonderful grace, to 
serve as permanent evidence of the artistic spirit abroad in the 
land before the poetic ideas then current found worthy expression. 
Under the direction of Henry III., a monarch of alien taste and 
temper, Westminster Abbey was erected in the pure French 
style ; yet, by reason of its sepulchres, it has become the chief 
monument of British glory. In foreign types of verse, which 
were about the same time established in England, along with 
forms of earlier use, were and are still conveyed the abiding ideals 
of the nation. 

VI 

Every century in its humour ! If the eleventh was melan- 
cholic, the twelfth choleric, and the thirteenth phlegmatic, the 
fourteenth was surely sanguine. 

The spirit of independent nationality, making all hearts to 
beat in generous sympathy and all minds to cohere with a 
common thought, ever stimulates high hope and original under- 
taking. The muse of Poetry attends the unified struggle for ideals. 

Her track, where'er the Goddess roves, 

Glory pursue, and generous shame, 

Th' unconquerable mind and Freedom's holy flame. 

The thirteenth century saw nationalistic ideas pullulating 
among all classes in England, but these only slowly grew strong 
and came to fruition in recognised agreement. In John's time 
the English were ready to accept a French prince as their 
sovereign. By 1300 even the suggestion of a foreign monarch 



I 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 99 

would have seemed intolerable. In the first part of the century 
the foreigners Stephen Langton and Simon de Montfort were 
beloved leaders of the people ; but later the indignation against 
the Poitevin Peter des Roches and the Gascon Piers Gaveston 
was intensified to violence by their alien birth. The great con- 
tinuous cause of complaint against Henry III. was his favouritism 
for foreigners. Edward I. tried to emphasise his position as the 
head of a nation, rather than as the sovereign of feudal barons, 
but only after the Peace of Bretigny, in 1360, did English kings 
cease to be technically vassals of the kings of France. 

In the fourteenth century originality first becomes genuinely 
characteristic of Middle English literature. Then, as never before, 
specially gifted individuals managed to separate themselves from 
the crowd by virtue of superior art. And their distinction was 
such as to heighten the credit of the country they loved. The 
genial spirit that tenants the verse of Chaucer is English. Lang- 
land's harsh voice is English too, and that of the robustious 
Minot, the emotional Rolle, the serene Gawain-poet, and the 
courageous Wycliffe. Gower, working in the old spirit, made his 
first English poem, the Confessio Amantis, as a liegeman for his 
lord — " a book for King Richard's sake " — but before he died he 
also became aware of the new and great light of national achieve- 
ment that had fully dawned : he changed his dedication to " a 
book for England's sake." Even when writing French, he pro- 
claimed his patriotism : " O gentile Engleterre, a. toi j'escrits." 
The fourteenth century was the age of nationalism. 

There is no need to discuss here the general conditions of 
Europe in this new era, or do more than mention the strife of the 
rival popes at Rome and Avignon, the struggle with Scotland, and 
the Hundred Years' War. It will be sufficient to speak briefly 
of a few Anglo-Latin writers who were then prominent. And 
most of them, it is noteworthy, were connected with Oxford, which 
had by this time become a truly great intellectual centre. The 
foundation of Merton and Balliol Colleges has already been 
referred to. Exeter was founded in 1314, Oriel in 1326, Queen's 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



in 1340, and New College (by William of Wykeham) in 1379. 
At Cambridge, Peterhouse dates from about 1284, Clare from 
1326, Pembroke from 1347, Gonville from 1348, Trinity Hall from 
1350, and Corpus Christi from 1352. The Universities of Cracow, 
Heidelberg, and Prague existed in Chaucer's time. 

At Oxford in the first half of the fourteenth century studied 
three distinguished pupils of Duns Scotus — William of Ockham, 
Walter Burleigh, and Thomas Bradwardine. William of Ockham 
(1270-1349?) was a member of the Franciscan house there, and 
was an earnest advocate of the evangelical principles of his Order. 
His chief fame, however, depends on his lectures on logic at Paris. 
His attitude was revolutionary in regard alike to political theory 
and to dialectics, both of which persistently occupied his original 
and fertile mind. His philosophy consisted in a new development 
of nominalism, which is sometimes called terminalism. He was 
sceptical of the value of studying dogma by the scholastic method, 
asserting that theology was beyond its sphere. His general scorn 
for the instruments of the schools in the inquiry after spiritual 
truth helped in their abandonment. He was a vigorous opponent 
of Roman errors, an open challenger of papal authority. He 
supported Louis of Bavaria in his struggle with Pope John 
XXII. From matters of state he desired the Church to keep 
aloof. In 1339 the Faculty of Arts at Paris forbade the teaching 
of his doctrines, but by 1400 they were widely accepted among 
scholars and zealously promulgated by a host of disciples. 
William helped to mould the thought of Wycliffe and of Luther. 

Walter Burleigh (1275-1345?) is chiefly famed as a com- 
mentator on Aristotle, and his works alone would far more than 
have sufficed to furnish the little library, " clad in black or red," 
which Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford kept at the head of his bed, 
in preference to "robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye"; for 
Burleigh is reputed to have written no less than 130 treatises on 
"Aristotle and his philosophye." He studied at Merton College 
and at Paris, and was chosen tutor of the Black Prince. Doubt- 
less of him it could be said that "gladly wolde he lerne and gladly 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



teche." None of his works had such vogue as a small volume, 
frequently printed, De Vita et Moribus Philosophorum, full of in- 
teresting biography and anecdote concerning some 120 poets and 
philosophers of ancient times. 

Thomas Bradwardine, another student at Merton, was born 
about 1290, and died of the plague in 1349, just after having 
been consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. He early attained 
eminence at Oxford in mathematics and astronomy, as well as in 
metaphysics and theology ; and his great work De Causa Dei 
contra Pelagium was based on lectures given there. This vast 
treatise was published in 16 18 in a folio volume containing nearly 
1000 pages. In it Bradwardine maintained the Augustinian 
doctrine of grace as opposed to merit in obtaining heavenly 
reward, a doctrine that, probably under his influence, the author 
of The Pearl embodied in beautiful verse. Both these writers 
were men of fervent piety and loving charity as well as erudite 
scholars. Bradwardine was private chaplain of Edward III., 
accompanied him on his travels, and heard his confession. We 
imagine the writer of The Pearl as eminently fitted for a like 
position. Chaucer mentions Bishop Bradwardine, along with St. 
Augustine and Boethius, as one who could " bolt to the bran " the 
question of God's foreknowledge and man's free-will. 

Witnesse on him, that any perfit clerk is, 

That in scole is gret altercacioun 

In this matere, and greet disputisoun, 

And hath ben of an hundred thousand men. 

Another Oxford divine, Robert Holcot (11349), who discussed 
the same subject, differed from Bradwardine in emphasising the 
necessity of free-will as antecedent to merit. Him too Chaucer 
had in mind when telling the Nun's Priest's Tale and " the 
moralitee thereof." From Holcot's Moralitates, or Exempla, 
he drew considerable material for the learned talk of the Nun's 
Priest. 

Bradwardine and Holcot, together with Richard FitzRalph, 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



Archbishop of Armagh (who so powerfully conducted the struggle 
of the English secular clergy against the mendicants), belonged 
to the group that associated with the celebrated Richard of Bury, 
Bishop of Durham — a group of finely cultivated men, devoted to 
learning and yet conspicuous in the public eye. 

Richard of Bury (1287 -1345) is now chiefly remembered 
because of his Philobiblon, one of the most interesting books in 
praise of books that has ever been written. He was a son of 
Sir Richard Aungerville, a knight whose ancestor had come over 
with the Conqueror. He gained distinction at Oxford ; he was 
called to court to serve as tutor of the young prince, afterwards 
Edward III. ; he occupied one after another many political 
positions, which required him to journey widely in England and 
abroad ; he was the King's ambassador on more than one occa- 
sion, and travelled in magnificence ; he secured the friendship of 
the Pope, and aroused the interest of Petrarch, with whom he 
conversed; he was appointed Bishop of Durham in 1333, and 
was enthroned later amid gorgeous scenes ; in the same year he 
was chosen by the King Lord Treasurer and Chancellor of the 
realm; in 1335 he gave up this position to undertake important 
missions of diplomacy ; his one memorable treatise was finished 
in 1345, only a few months before his death. 

An old biography of Richard states that he had more books 
than all the other English bishops put together : 

He had a separate library in each of his residences, and wherever he was 
residing so many books lay about his bedchamber that it was hardly possible 
to stand or move without treading upon them. All the time he could spare 
from business was devoted either to religious offices or to his books. Every 
day while at table he would have a book read to him, unless some special 
guests were present, and afterwards would engage in discussion on the subject 
of the reading. The haughty Anthony Bee [Bishop of Durham before him] 
delighted in the appendages of royalty — to be addressed by nobles kneeling, 
and to be waited on in his presence-chamber at his table by knights bare-headed 
and standing ; but De Bury loved to surround himself with learned men. 

Richard included nearly every kind of book in his collection, 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 103 

and procured rarities without consideration of cost, sometimes by 
unscrupulous means. He let it be known that his favour could 
be obtained more certainly by gifts of books than in any other 
way. He secured manuscripts from the monastic libraries by 
hook or by crook. He maintained copyists and illuminators of 
his own. He kept in communication with agents throughout 
Europe. Ever using all sorts of persons and magnets to attract 
books, he soon had " a multitudinous flight of the finest volumes." 
The following passages from the Philobiblon will illustrate the 
author's feelings and style : 

In books I find the dead as if they were alive ; in books I foresee things 
to come ; in books warlike affairs are set forth ; from books come forth the 
laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time ; Saturn ceases 
not to devour the children that he generates ; all the glory of the world would 
be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of 
books. 

The hideousness of vice is greatly reprobated in books, so that he who 
loves to commune with books is led to detest all manner of vice. . . . Faith 
is established by the power of books ; hope is strengthened by their solace. 

Books delight us when prosperity smiles upon us ; they comfort us in- 
separably when stormy fortune frowns on us. They lend validity to human 
compacts, and no serious judgments are propounded without their help. Arts 
and sciences, all the advantages of which no mind can enumerate, consist in 
books. How highly must we estimate the wondrous power of books, since 
through them we survey the utmost bounds of the world and time, and con- 
template the things that are as well as those that are not, as it were in the 
mirror of eternity. 

Finally, we must consider what pleasantness of teaching there is in books, 
how easy, how secret ! How safely we lay bare the poverty of human igno- 
rance to books without feeling any shame ! They are masters who instruct us 
without rod or ferule, without angry words, without clothes or money. If 
you come to them they are not asleep ; if you ask and inquire of them they 
do not withdraw themselves ; they do not chide if you make mistakes ; they 
do not laugh at you if you are ignorant. O books, who alone are liberal and 
free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you 
faithfully ! 

Richard laments the large number in his day who " offer the 



104 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

fuming must of their youthful intellect to the difficulties of 
philosophy and bestow the clearer wine upon the money-making 
business of life." "Flocks and fleeces," he writes, "crops and 
granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and goblets, are nowadays the 
reading and study of the monks, except a few elect ones, in whom 
lingers not the image, but some slight vestige of the fathers that 
preceded them." Of the mendicants he says that " a threefold case 
of superfluities, namely, of the stomach, of dress, and of houses," 
has seduced them from study. Paris Richard adored, but he 
found the scholars there " more zealous in the study of antiquity 
than in the subtle investigation of truth," while " English subtlety, 
illumined by the lights of former times, is always sending forth 
fresh rays of truth." 

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries form the age of the 
schoolmen " doctors," the greatest of whom were differentiated by 
epithets characteristic of their distinction. Alexander of Hales 
was " irrefragable," Adam Marsh " illustrious," Roger Bacon 
"marvellous," Albertus Magrius "universal," Thomas Aquinas 
"angelic," Bonaventura "seraphic," Duns Scotus "subtle," 
William of Ockham " invincible," Bradwardine " profound," Bur- 
leigh " plain and perspicuous." It remains to speak of one 
more celebrated perhaps than any of these, the " evangelical " 
doctor — John Wycliffe. 

Of Wycliffe {c. 1324-84), however, little need be said here, since 
his achievements will be considered more appropriately in the 
next volume of this work. Yet it is well to remark now that he 
was a philosopher and a theologian before he entered upon his 
career as a reformer and led the forces of heterodoxy and 
discontent with majestic power. And it was his training at 
Oxford, as fellow and master of Balliol, that fitted him later for 
that great public usefulness which established his renown. In 
philosophy he was a moderate realist, opposed to the intricacies 
of Continental Thomists ; in theology, an iconoclast, defying 
ecclesiastical authority. He was the last prominent schoolman. 

Wycliffe looms large on the horizon of our view as students 



ii ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 105 

of English literature, not so much because of his philosophical, 
theological, or even political ideas, as because he took so 
enlightened an attitude towards the vernacular as to write many 
of his own tracts and sermons in English, and above all to pro- 
duce our first English translation of the Bible. 

An earlier contemporary of his, who likewise, because he too 
promoted the literary use of English, deserves fuller consideration 
at our hands than many a greater man of the same period, is 
the hermit Richard Rolle of Hampole. Rolle was born about 
1290 at Thornton (Dale) in Yorkshire, and, with the aid of 
Thomas de Neville, Archdeacon of Durham, was enabled to 
study at Oxford. . By nature, however, a mystic, the youth soon 
came to abhor the quibblings of theological speculation, and 
decided that in the controversies that raged at the University all 
was but vanity and vexation of spirit. Feeling stifled by the 
atmosphere of quintessential intellectuality that surrounded him, 
he decided to cut loose from his collegiate associates and flee to 
a solitary retreat, where, untrammelled by any responsibility or 
restriction, he might devote himself to attaining his lofty ideal of 
the contemplative life. He began his career somewhat sensationally. 
Borrowing from his sister two kirtles, one white, the other grey, 
he donned the white first and over it placed the grey without the 
sleeves, and then, finishing his attire with his father's hood, he 
escaped from home, frightening off his sister, who raised the cry 
that he was mad. Shortly after, he appeared at the church 
where a friend of his father's, John of Dalton, was wont to 
worship. By his singular behaviour and the zeal he evinced in a 
sermon which he preached unsolicited, he at once attracted the 
attention of the knight, who, being convinced of the sincerity of 
his purpose, provided him with a hermitage on his estate, and 
gave him daily sustenance. There, during some four years, he 
passed through the various stages of mystical purification, 
engaged chiefly with "love-longing and still mourning," conquer- 
ing his natural self, struggling for the higher vision. Afterwards 
for a time he spent a restless life, wandering from one place to 



io6 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

another, "in holy thought and work." Having reached what he 
believed to be high altitudes of spiritual life, having come, 
according to his own feeling, to be numbered among the saints, 
he desired to lead others to the joy of divine ecstasy. Not being 
in orders, he could not preach in church ; but he went about, 
eagerly spreading his new-found principle of love, admonishing 
the worldly-minded of awful danger in the future, pleading for 
chastity and charity. His wanderings, however, do not appear 
to have been satisfactory either to himself or to others, and he 
soon adopted a more efficacious way of advancing his theories of 
life : he began to write. Rhapsodic effusions, songs to Christ and 
Mary, had naturally been his first productions. These are now 
followed by longer works of pleading or denunciation. He writes 
easily, impetuously, constantly. He seeks to win souls by 
describing the joys of life in God; but also by placing before 
them fearful pictures of death and hell. He denounces the 
proud and selfish within and without the Church, and lashes 
hypocrites with a stinging thong. It is not surprising, then, 
considering the state of the clergy at the time, that he met with 
ridicule and supercilious neglect, that he found himself defamed 
and persecuted. For a while he suffered dejection. But serenity 
seems to have come to him when he settled in Richmondshire, 
near a nunnery of Ainderby, presided over by a recluse named 
Margaret, who inspired him to some of his best production. 
The last years of his life were spent at Hampole, in the south of 
Yorkshire, where he was the spiritual adviser of a body of 
Cistercian nuns. It was here probably that he wrote his most 
mature works, those which deal chiefly with the life to come — for 
example, his long English poem, The Prick of Conscience, which 
we shall later examine. He died in 1349, probably one of 
the many victims of the pestilence of that year. By the nuns of 
Hampole he was regarded as a patron saint, and they prepared 
an Officiwn et Legenda of his life and miracles, in view of his 
expected canonisation. That this did not take place was perhaps 
due to the use made by the Lollards of his denunciatory works. 



II ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 107 

Amongst Rolle's early Latin writings is a Melum Contempla- 
tivorum, "Of the Glory and Perfection of the Saints," a series of 
postils in praise of the contemplative life — a book in combined 
prose and verse, characterised by the Anglo-Saxon tendency to 
balance and alliteration. This was followed by a Regida 
Heremitarum in prose ; paraphrases of Job and other parts of 
Scripture ; together with lyrics, epigrams, aphorisms, and sen- 
tences. His style is marked throughout by exuberance and 
extravagance. His passion is unrestrained, his zeal is im- 
mature. Two of his ethical works, De Emendacione Vitae and 
De Incendio Amor/s, were englished in 1434-35 by one Richard 
Misyn, a Carmelite prior of Lincoln, and in this dress have 
recently been printed. The former is a " Rule of Living " ; the 
latter a plea for piety and an exaltation of the hermit life. These 
works were offered " not to. philosophers or to wise men of this 
world, or to great divines lapped in questions infinite, but to the 
ignorant and untaught, more busy to love God than to know 
many things." In Rolle's opinion, men burning with love seldom 
"go outward to worldly business, or take the dignity of worship 
or prelacy." "Alas! for shame," he exclaims, "an old wife is 
more expert of God's love and less desirous of worldly liking 
than is the great divine, whose study is vain ; for why, for vanity 
he studies, that he glorious may appear, and so be known, that 
rents and dignities he more get : the which a fool, and not wise, 
is worthy to be holden." The love by which he is stimulated is 
" ghostly wine," under the influence of which he thus speaks with 
mystic emotion : 

It is said the nightingale to song and melody all night is given that she 
may please him to whom she is joined. How much more with greatest 
sweetness to Christ, my Jesu, I should sing, that is spouse of my soul, in all 
this present life, that is night in regard of clearness to come. 

Langland denounced those who 

Clothed them in copes to be known from others, 
And made themselves hermits their ease to have ; 



108 ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE chap. 

but Rolle he certainly could not then have had in mind. Despite 
all his excesses, the hermit of Hampole seems to have been cor- 
rectly described in the Officium as "a noble soul transported 
with the love of God." 

Still another distinguished English writer of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, John Gower, was a Latin poet of deserved repute. Gower 
wrote in Latin verse a Tripartite Chronicle, concerning events of 
the reign of Richard II., and various short poems ; but his chief 
' work in the tongue of the learned was his Vox Clamantis, a poem 
of over 10,000 lines in elegiacs, after the manner of Ovid. The 
most interesting part of this composition, remarkable alike for 
its form and contents, deals with the Peasants' Rising of 1381 ; 
but it gives also a general view of social conditions in the 
author's time. That Gower should choose Latin for such a theme 
is a fact worth consideration. It shows the persistent belief of 
clerks in its superior dignity. Perhaps, furthermore, Gower felt 
it safer in a time of socialistic revolt to denounce abuses in a 
language not understood by the masses. Langland, we recall, 
makes his angel speak in Latin : 

For lewd (ignorant) men ne could 
Jangle nor judge, what justify them should, 
But suffer and serve. 

There was but little Latin, as Chaucer points out, in the " maw " 
of the Shipman and his rough comrades. 

The three great fourteenth -century poets of Italy, who are 
now celebrated particularly for their works in the vernacular, were 
formerly almost as much applauded for their books in the universal 
tongue of scholars. Dante wrote in Latin various eclogues and 
epistles, as well as his important treatises De Monarchia and 
De Vulgari Eloquio. Moreover, he is said to have originally 
planned to write the Divine Comedy in Latin ; and Boccaccio 
tells us that wise men of his time marvelled at his final 
choice of Italian. Petrarch wrote in Latin an epic poem on 
Scipio Africanus, and treatises On the Contempt of the World, 



il ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 109 

The Solitary Life, True Knowledge, etc. Boccaccio's four im- 
portant Latin books, on mythology, ancient geography, and the 
history of famous men and women, were familiar to Chaucer and 
other English writers. One of his Latin eclogues inspired the 
production 'of The Pearl. 

Latin long continued to be employed by scholars in England. 
The names of Capgrave and Fortescue ; Erasmus, Grocyn, and 
Colet ; Thomas More, Bale, Foxe, and Barclay ; Francis Bacon 
and Milton — are alone sufficient to attest the hold that Latin 
maintained on cultivated men even to the end of the seventeenth 
century. It was with reluctance that Milton renounced Latin as 
the medium of his dignified thought. He did so, he informs us, 
because he recognised not only that it would be hard for him " to 
arrive at the second rank among the Latins," but also that it was 
a national duty for every one to strive to adorn the speech to 
which he was born — "not caring to be once named abroad," he 
adds, "but content with these British islands as my world." 
The words above italicised are very significant : it was chiefly 
because Englishmen cared to be named abroad, because they 
desired to be measured by world-standards, that they felt bound 
to write in Latin. And, indeed, until quite recently most foreigners, 
like Portia, have had "a poor pennyworth in the English." 
Fauconbridge, ignorant of Latin, French, and Italian, was, in 
truth, "a proper man's picture; but, alas, who can converse with 
a dumb show ? " No European scholar in the Middle Ages would 
have been expected, even by an Englishman, to know English. 

The influence of the widespread use of Latin in England 
during the period from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer is not 
to be estimated only by its direct, but also by its indirect effect 
on writing in the vernacular. Obviously, had the same men who 
wrote in Latin been able to be what they were, think as they 
thought, and do as they did, and still write in their native tongue, 
it would have been of great advantage to the nation. The history 
of our literature would have been a different sort of record. But 
quite as obviously that would not have been possible, for the 



ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE 



English authors were the product of the very cosmopolitan in- 
tellectual conditions which determined their attitude and style. 
Without yielding subservience to the power of the Latin Church, 
and profiting by the Latin schools, they would have been an 
isolated body of men, far less cultivated, with much narrower 
outlook, almost incapable of participating in the large movements 
of the world. It is indeed doubtful, then, whether in the long 
run our literature has suffered greatly because retarded in growth 
by this long-continued foreign dominion over English thought ; 
for this dominion unquestionably established English civilisation 
on firmer foundations and made possible more permanent con- 
ditions of large national development. Less intimate with Con- 
tinental learning, literature, and life, the English people might 
have produced more independent individuals, who would have 
left works of greater subjective interest than those which now 
bear witness to their power ; but their increased isolation would 
have removed from them the outer stimuli that promoted their 
best achievement. 



CHAPTER III 

ANGLO-NORMAN AND ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 

French was spoken by many in England prior to the Conquest. 
Edward the Confessor, who was reared on the Continent, sur- 
rounded himself with Norman favourites, on whom he bestowed 
rich possessions. As a result, many foreigners made their abode 
in the land, and conducted themselves with entire disregard for 
the old habits of the people. This, however, was but a prelude 
to what happened after the arrival of William the Conqueror. 
French was then definitely established in England as the ordinary 
speech of nearly every one in authority who was naturally disposed 
to promote or to produce literary works. 

•It is well to remember that for over two hundred years after 
the Conquest no king of England spoke English as his mother- 
tongue ; for Henry IV. (1399-1413) was perhaps the earliest to use 
it with native ease. One of the first acts of the Conqueror was to 
have the laws of his predecessors translated into French, in order 
to make them intelligible to those whose provisions they were to 
govern. And French remained the language of the courts up to 
1362, when Edward III. finally acquiesced in the popular demand, 
and ordained that English might be used on occasion. In 1363 
for the first time the Chancellor opened Parliament with a speech 
in English. In 1386 English appeared in petitions; but not 
before 1450 were they regularly presented in that tongue. Law- 
suits were not conducted in English before the time of Henry 
III. The laws themselves were formulated in French or in 



ANGLO-NORMAN AND 



Latin to the end of the fifteenth century. Cromwell did away 
with French in the courts ; but it was restored by Charles ; and 
only since the eighteenth century has the use of English been 
obligatory. Even to this day a large number of French phrases 
are in common use by jurists, perpetual reminders of the founda- 
tions of English law. 

For a time after the arrival of the Normans there was naturally 
a gulf fixed between the classes who spoke French and those 
who spoke English ; but the chasm was speedily bridged. By 
intermarriage, by intermingling of every kind, but, above all, by 
the rapidly developed sense of patriotic unity, the barriers of race 
ceased to exist, and both English and French were spoken or 
understood by all men of influence. The Conqueror seems never 
to have desired to uproot the popular speech, and in this he was 
wise : the sentiment of independent nationality was too strong to 
permit it if he had tried. Every king of England was brought to 
see that his power lay in his subjects' devotion, and that he 
alienated their sympathies by disturbing their traditions. They 
were not troubled by his use of French, because it was natural to 
him ; they tolerated the French of his prelates and subordinates 
because to them too it was natural, and many such they recog- 
nised as serving the best interests of the land. These might speak 
French or not as they pleased, so long as their feelings were 
English, and they suffered no reproach. But the cause of 
England gradually came to require insistence on English as the 
national tongue ; hostility to the French established mutual 
sympathy at home ; and when England for Englishmen became 
the watchword of all ranks, the use of the ancient language of 
the people was accepted as the touchstone of a patriot. 

It is important, then, to distinguish two periods in the 
supremacy of -French in England. From the Conquest to the 
loss of Normandy in 1204, the relations existing between the 
Normans or French of the island and of the Continent neces- 
sitated the preservation of the only language intelligible to both. 
But when, by agreement of John and Philip Augustus, no knight 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 113 

was allowed to hold lands in both England and Normandy, when 
Normans had to be formally as well as practically naturalised 
in England, French became a foreign tongue. It continued 
to be much cultivated, but not in the same spirit as before. 
It was learned for convenience in travel, for use in handling 
documents and state papers, for the amenities of social inter- 
course, and the satisfactions of polite literature. 

In the thirteenth century Grosseteste still recognised as avail- 
able for the cultivated only two languages, Latin in learning 
and French in society. Then, not only the aristocracy but 
also the middle classes, who aped them, strove to acquire some 
knowledge of the foreign speech as a mark of distinction, as 
an accomplishment. "For but a man knows French, he is 
esteemed but little," said the sturdy Englishman Robert 
of Gloucester. And Higden, Chaucer's contemporary, declared 
that even in his time " uplandish men " would liken themselves 
to gentlemen by busy efforts to speak French. Gentlemen's 
children, he explained, were taught French from their cradles. 
All the instruction in grammar schools, moreover, was given in 
French until 1345, when one John Cornwall made what was no 
doubt a startling innovation and adopted English instead. Con- 
cerning the wisdom of the change, John of Treves, Higden's 
translator, wrote thus in 1385 : 

The advantage is that they learn their grammar in less time than 
children were wont to do ; the disadvantage, that now children of the 
grammar schools know no more French than their left heels, and that is 
harm for them, if they shall pass the sea and travel in strange lands and in 
many other places. Also gentlemen have now much left for to teach their 
children French. 

At the universities the old custom of construing in the foreign 
tongue was longer maintained. Students at Oxford as late as 
1340 were required to speak Latin or French at their meals. 

At first as pure French was spoken in England as on the 
Continent. In the Ypomedon of Hugh of Rutland (c. 1185), 
for example, no peculiar Anglicisms are to be found. But as 

1 



H4 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

time went on the language grew more and more provincial. 
The English who received their schooling at home were not 
so facile or correct with tongue or pen as their kinsmen in 
France. Such schools as those at Marlborough and Stratford- 
atte-Bowe (to which Walter Map and Chaucer refer) were no 
places to learn exactly Continental French. Even so accom- 
plished a writer as Gower apologised for his awkward use of 
the foreign idiom, on the ground of his nationality. But it 
should be remembered that large numbers of English youth 
were constantly being educated at Paris, and these, as well as 
the knights and clergy, who habitually travelled, must be pre- 
sumed to have spoken nearly like their friends abroad. 

The persistent use of French in England had large effect 
on the national tongue. It made for the obscuration of final 
syllables and the loss of inflections. It influenced the order 
of words, accentuated the differences between the dialects, and 
favoured the analytical tendency of the language. Gradually 
the French element became more and more noticeable in the 
vocabulary. It is estimated that in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
from 1086 to 1 1 54 there are less than twenty French words; 
in Layamon's Brut (c. 1205) hardly a hundred appear in 32,000 
lines; in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (1298) there are 
as many in the first five hundred ; while Robert Mannyng of 
Brunne (1303) has a hundred and seventy in an equal number. 
And the French intermixture is marked not only in such works 
as the above, which are based on French poems, but in allitera- 
tive writings of the fourteenth century : for example, The Pearl, 
which has no such connection. On the other hand, the French 
of Englishmen showed the influence of native syntax and 
vocabulary. In their French poems we observe the employ- 
ment of Germanic principles of metre. 

The French literature produced in England during the 
early Middle Ages is certainly of large importance in estimating 
the intellectual activity of Englishmen during that period ; but 
it ceased to have special significance when it was not naturally 



HI ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 115 

employed. We are but mildly interested in the misdirected 
efforts of the few who affectedly or stupidly persisted in the 
use of a tongue not their own. Yet the bias of prevailing taste 
in the fourteenth century and later towards French styles is 
a fact of moment in any consideration of the influences under 
which Chaucer and his fellows developed their art. 

Old French literature comprises two great divisions, narra- 
tive and didactic, which are further subdivided for clear treat- 
ment. The first includes epics, romances, and tales ; the second, 
historical, religious, ethical, and utilitarian works. More or 
less apart stand lyrical poems and the drama. It is the purpose 
of the present chapter to indicate briefly the productions of the 
Normans and Anglo-French in these different styles. Some of 
the documents here only named will be more fully discussed 
in later sections. 

Romance 

The Continental Normans were not a romantic people. 
Notwithstanding the frequent statements to the contrary, the 
fact is incontrovertible that they had little share in the pro- 
duction of the romances of war and adventure which occupy 
so large a place in Old French literature. They were un- 
doubtedly familiar with them, read them with pleasure, and 
helped in their distribution ; but they were apparently too sober 
and serious- minded to give themselves up to such unpractical 
composition. The Anglo-Normans, however, seem to have 
cultivated romance with more zest : through their efforts has 
been preserved much ancient saga of the British Isles of which 
otherwise we should have no trace. The conditions of their 
settlement seem to have brought this about. Finding them- 
selves in daily intercourse with fellow - countrymen of unlike 
ancestry, they naturally questioned them with regard to their 
past history, and listened with attention to the tales of old 



n6 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

heroes held in honourable memory by their descendants — tales 
which made the land of their adoption more interesting and 
worthy. Becoming speedily naturalised, the Normans adopted 
as their own the traditions of Britain, of no matter whose 
inheritance, and thereby developed bonds of sympathy with 
the composite people whom but a short time since they had 
dispossessed of power. Men and women of station encouraged 
writers to record the old stories in French, that they might 
be made accessible to the world, and that they themselves might 
read them with greater pleasure. 

Unquestionably Anglo-Normans, played an important part 
in perpetuating the so-called "matter of Britain." Leaving 
aside for the moment the translations by Gaimar, Wace, and 
others of the epoch-making history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
which first dignified the Celtic tales of Arthur and his followers, 
we observe, first, that the oldest Breton lay (of the enchanted 
horn which caused much merriment and dismay at Arthur's 
court) was composed by an Anglo - Norman, Robert Biquet, 
and that the most distinguished of all lay-writers, the charming 
poetess Marie de France, collected and redacted her material 
in England, and dedicated , the finished volume to Henry II. 
Unfortunately we have but fragments of the Tristan of her 
contemporary, Thomas, but still enough is left to convince us 
that it was an excellent poem, one of the best of all Arthurian 
romances, and the work of an Englishman. If the Bred to 
whom Thomas refers as an authority on " les gestes et les cuntes, 
De tuz les reis, de tuz les cuntes Qui orent este en Bretaigne " (i.e. 
Great Britain) is identical with the Welsh " famosus fabulator " 
Bledhericus, spoken of by Gerald de Barri, and also with 
Bleheris, the writer of the source of Wauchier de Denain's 
continuation of Crestien's Perceval, he probably wrote, a half 
century before Crestien, poems in French concerning Gawain 
and other British heroes. In England before 1200 was 
composed La Folie Tristan, an interesting episodic poem of 
about a thousand lines. Robert de Boron, to whom we owe^ 



Ill ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 1 17 

much in the development of the legend of the Holy Grail, has 
been identified with "a landed knight of Hertfordshire, who 
in an undated document of 1 177-1203, with his wife Beatrice 
and his son Roger, presented lands at Cockenhatch to a cloister, 
N and about 11 86 received rewards from Henry II." And these, 
we may be sure, are but a few of those who were occupied 
in England in reviving the popular lore of the Celts. Were 
we in possession of all the facts, had we in our hands the 
poems irrevocably gone, we should certainly have many more 
names to enrol in this honourable list. 

There are those who would still deprive the Normans of much 
participation in propagating the "matter of Britain"; but none 
can deny them the credit of making considerable English tradition 
accessible to the world : the extant French romances of Horn 
et Rimenhild, Have/ok, Waldef, Guy de Warwick, and Boeve de 
Hamtone are the work of Normans in England. 

They also helped to perpetuate other themes. About 1185 
an Anglo-Norman, Hugh of Rutland, who lived at Credenhill, 
near Hereford, and was an acquaintance of Walter Map, com- 
piled his Ypomedon and Protesilaus, which recall the Romance 
of Thebes in name, yet seem Arthurian in style. The famous 
love-story of Atnadas et Ydoine (which, like Crestien's Cliges, 
reminds one of the tale of Romeo and Juliet) existed in an 
Anglo-Norman redaction, to which (or to an English translation 
of it) Gower and other poets refer. About the middle of the 
thirteenth century a clerk, Eustace of Kent, wrote of Alexander 
in a Roman de Toute Chevalerie. The life of Richard Cceur de 
Lion and that of the outlaw Fulk Fitz Warren were romantically 
recorded in Anglo-French. 

Many scribes, moreover, were kept busy in England copying 
the popular romances composed on the Continent, and their 
manuscripts are still in notable instances the best, sometimes the 
only ones, preserved. Crestien (de Troyes ?) says he derived the 
material for his Guillaume cPAngleterre from England. The 
Italian Rustician of Pisa made his extensive book of Arthurian 



n8 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

romance on the basis of a manuscript belonging to Edward, son 
of Henry III. By way of England French romances were 
transmitted to the North. 

Tales 

Of the short secular tales current among the Anglo-Norman 
laity we have but scant knowledge. Fabliaux no doubt circu- 
lated freely in England ; but only seven poems of this merry kind 
appear to have been composed there. In the composition of the 
beast-epic of Reynard the Fox they perhaps participated. Marie's 
Ysopet attests their acquaintance with a large body of ^Esopic 
fable, which was made familiar to them likewise by sermons and 
example-books. Co?ites devots were very much to the Norman 
taste, and large numbers were written in French for the people. 
We have a collection of Miracles of Our Lady by an Anglo- 
Norman monk Adgar of the twelfth century. A collection of 
stories, as well as a book of edification, is the Manuel des Pkhies 
of William of Wadington, which, as we shall see, was translated 
into English by Robert of Brunne in 1303. In the thirteenth 
century the Anglo-Norman Chardri wrote his Barlaam et 
Josaphaz, a metrical version of a collection of tales with an 
extraordinary history : at bottom an account of Buddha, turned 
into a Christian Greek legend in the sixth or seventh century, 
it was accessible to the writer in a Latin redaction of the tenth. 
Barlaam, a holy hermit, converts the young Indian prince Josaphaz 
to Christianity by skilful instruction, of which the narration of 
various Oriental stories, ingeniously pointed, forms the chief 
substance. Many tales were moralised for the middle classes, 
who preferred French to English, by Nicole Bozon, an indus- 
trious populanser of clerical learning at the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, and a story-teller sometimes of considerable 
skill. 



ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 



Historical Works 

The most important, however, of the literary productions of 
the Anglo-Normans in the vernacular are their records of his- 
torical events. On the Continent little had been done to provide 
the people with information regarding their past ; but in England 
the laity evinced so early an ardent desire for knowledge of former 
and present happenings, and powerful patrons were so ready to 
encourage writers, that many important works were speedily pro- 
duced. Doubtless the fact that French appeared more dignified 
in England than abroad had something to do with the .stimulus 
given there to compositions in that language. But there was a 
deeper cause. Even before the Conquest, the Normans had no 
particular love for the French ; and when they once had gained 
the supremacy in England, they soon developed a spirit of 
haughty independence exasperating to their nominal lords. In 
an effort to magnify the importance of their position, they seized 
upon the native traditions of their new land and utilised them as 
theirs. The French taunted them about their allegiance to 
" Arflet of Northumberland " (a fictitious personage, with his 
name from King Alfred), but particularly about their parade of 
Arthur, whom the conquerors took pains to exalt as a national 
hero. When their jealous rivals tried to lower this royal figure 
in their eyes, picturing him as one who had been overcome by a 
cat (Chapalu), which had afterwards invaded England and carried 
off the king's crown, they retorted with indignant sneers (as we 
see from Andre de Coutances) that this was but a miserable and 
lying concoction, that in truth Arthur had victoriously subjugated 
the whole realm of France, and held proud court at Paris itself. 
Appealing to Geoffrey pf Monmouth as authority, they reminded 
the French of the defeat of their king Frollo in the lie de France, 
and portrayed this supposed ruler as a contemptible person who 
in making his testament had left them certain despicable rules of 
conduct, which had since become their prominent characteristics. 



ANGLO-NORMAN AND 



Geoffrey's history, in truth, had much to do with making the 
Normans proud of their adopted land. Though denounced, as 
we have seen, by a critical few as a mere tissue of fables, it was 
widely believed, and read with rejoicing. Geoffrey's work spread 
like a popular novel to-day. It speedily became everywhere a 
subject of discussion. Soon after its appearance Alvred of 
Beverley tells us that he grew so uncomfortable at being obliged 
time and time again to say that he had not read it, that he 
finally secured a copy. Then, however, he was so delighted 
that he at once made an abstract of it for his own convenience. 
Collecting facts from other sources, he afterwards continued it to 
1 1 29. His example in this regard was followed by others: it 
became a common thing to bring Geoffrey up to date. Before 
1 1 50 it was translated into French verse by the Anglo-Norman 
Geoffrey Gaimar, at the instance of Constance, wife of Ralph 
FitzGilbert, a noble lady of Lincolnshire. In this, the first 
French rhymed chronicle extant, the author followed the for- 
tunes of the island from the era preceding the Trojan War, 
through the period of the Roman administration, the epochs 
of British and Saxon rule, down to the Conquest, tracing after- 
wards, all too briefly, the succeeding events to the death of 
William II. The first part of this extensive work, the Estorie 
des Bretons, has disappeared, probably because eclipsed by that 
of Wace, which covered the same ground better almost im- 
mediately after (about 11 55); but we have still the Estorie des 
Engfeis, a work of considerable historical interest, though not so 
valuable as if the author had dealt with matters of which as a 
contemporary he might be presumed to have first-hand knowledge. 
It is valuable also because it embodies tales of romantic heroes 
such as Havelok and Hereward, and legends of English saints. 
Geoffrey's history Gaimar obtained, he tells us, through the 
efforts of his patroness and her husband, from Walter Espec, a 
well-known Yorkshire baron (11153), who distinguished himself 
particularly at the Battle of the Standard in n 38, and was the 
founder of several abbeys (Kirkham, Rievaulx, and Wardon). 



ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 



He also used as sources other "English, Romance, and Latin 
books," some of which are difficult to identify, but among them 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle certainly occupied a conspicuous 
place. 

Though closely attached to the English rulers and a mocking 
reviler of the French, Wace seems to have lived most of his life 
in Normandy. Born about noo in Jersey, he left his home at 
an early age to study, first at Caen, afterwards at Paris ; then he 
returned to Caen, and lived there many years ; until finally, as a 
reward for his literary labours, he was made prebendary of Bayeux. 
He died probably about 1175. He himself tells us that he 
occupied the position of " reading clerk " during the lives of the 
first three Henries, all of whom he had seen and known ; and that 
he had composed many works other than his histories, of which 
some saints' lives are preserved. He was, it appears, an author 
by profession, who wrote more for calculated profit than from 
inevitable inspiration. And yet he was by no means servile or 
dependent in his attitude. He controlled his chief authorities by 
personal investigations, and utilised information from whatever 
source it might be derived, whether held in memory from the 
songs of jongleurs whom he had heard in his youth, or taken 
from the storehouse of popular tradition to which he had access. 
To Geoffrey's matter he added occasionally, as, for example, 
details regarding the Welsh bard Taliessin, the story of how 
Gormond set fire to Cirencester, the legend of how the inhabit- 
ants of Dorset got tails according to the prayer of St. Augustine, 
whom they irreverently mocked; also certain important state- 
ments concerning the foundation of the Round Table. Parts 
of Geoffrey's book (such as the prophecies of Merlin) he 
omitted as unintelligible or irrelevant. But his chief change 
was in the tone of the work. With no little skill he turned the 
rhetorical Latin prose of his original into flowing octosyllabic 
couplets, and subtly transformed it by the infusion of the spirit 
of French romance. In his hands the narrative gained in 
vividness and realism. Each battle he described as if an eye- 



ANGLO-NORMAN AND 



witness of the scene. Imagining, for example, Arthur's fleet 
setting sail to engage in war with Rome, he conceived sailors in 
the rigging, warriors bidding farewell to their friends, leaders 
delivering orders to the crew, and painted a picture full of 
animation and life. 

It was at the command of Henry II. that Wace undertook 
later (between 1160 and 11 74) to write the history of the Dukes 
of Normandy, usually termed the Roman de Rou, after Rollo 
(Hrolfr), the first chieftain of the Norman line, to whom 
Charles the Simple had given Neustria in fief in 911. Using as 
his chief authorities the chronicles of Dudo of St. Quentin, 
William of Jumieges, and William of Poitiers, he. compiled a 
work of historical as well as literary and linguistic value. He 
added to information in his sources many a bit of his own 
gleaning. Wace did not get beyond the Battle of Tinchebrai in 
1 106. For some unknown reason he lost the favour of his patron, 
who commissioned another to write the history of the duchy. 

Benoit was the name of the rival who supplanted him as royal 
historiographer. He also left the work incomplete. Although 
his Chronique des Dues de No?-mandie is 42,300 lines long, it 
reaches only to the death of Henry I.; yet the author's chief 
object, we are told, was to describe the reign of Henry II. He 
utilised Wace as well as his predecessors, but followed his own 
judgment or caprice, now adding, now subtracting, yet without 
making any very significant change. This Benoit has in the 
past been regularly identified with the well-known author of 
the Rotnan de Troie, Benoit de Ste. More ; but the identification 
is now questioned. His work is characterised by the same 
detailed descriptions as Wace's, the same tendency to elaborate 
and add graphic touches. Benoit's style, however, is less con- 
cise, less clear-cut, without any trace of the amused irony in 
which now and then his rival indulged. 

In this connection should be mentioned, though not com- 
posed until the beginning of the fourteenth century, another 
Anglo - French chronicle, similar in nature and substance to 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 123 

Gaimar's, by a fellow- Northerner, Pers de Langtoft, Canon of 
the Augustinian priory at Bridlington in Yorkshire. The first 
part of his work is an abridgment of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
with a few variations which seem to show acquaintance with 
other British legends then current. The second embraces a 
history of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman kings down 
to the death of Henry III. Here he compiles, not always 
accurately, from various writers, amongst whom he mentions 
William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Florence 
of Worcester. In the third section, to the death of Edward I., 
Langtoft is a contemporary historian, and his record has in- 
dependent value. Noteworthy is his hatred of the Scotch. 
Though really of small literary merit, and written in barbarous 
French, his work seems to have been very popular. It was 
often copied, and formed the basis for a large part of the English 
chronicle of Robert of Brunne. It is composed in rhymed 
Alexandrine tirades, though songs in other metres are occasionally 
introduced. 

But historical writing among the Normans was not confined 
to comprehensive chronicles. Gaimar, in concluding his work, 
declares his intention of writing a history of the life of Henry I., 
as a supplement to that of a contemporary named David, whom 
he reproaches with having omitted " thousands of things " of 
interest. He seems particularly to have missed some account 
of the romantic episodes in the King's career, and descriptions 
of hunts and courtly feasts. Yet David's poem, we learn, was 
written in the style of the chansons de geste, and was suited for 
song. This book the Lady Constance had had transcribed at 
the cost of a mark of silver and kept by her in her chamber. 
Originally it had been composed at the request of Adelaide of 
Louvain, after the death of her husband, Henry I., in 1135. 
Its disappearance, like that of Gaimar's own work (including 
his proposed Life of Henry, if it ever was written), is but one 
of many bits of evidence that we can never hope to estimate 
accurately the literary productivity of the period. 



124 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

Several important events in the reign of Henry II. were 
recorded in verse by contemporaries. The murder of Thomas 
a Becket in 1170, which made so great a sensation through- 
out Europe, and for which the King had so to humble himself, 
called forth several lives of the Saint in the vulgar tongue, 
the most significant (in five-line strophes, monorhymes) being 
by Gamier du Pont St. Maxence, a Frenchman, who, however, 
journeyed to England for information, and finished his book 
in 1 1 74 at Thomas's grave in Canterbury. Another (in tail- 
rhyme strophes) was written before the end of the century by 
an Anglo-Norman, Benoit, a monk of St. Albans. A third 
(in octosyllabic couplets), of the beginning of the thirteenth 
century, is preserved only in fragments. Of these, Garnier's 
work is distinctly the most remarkable. The author prided him- 
self on the purity and distinction of his style, his language being, 
as he was well aware, superior to Norman-French. His informa- 
tion, being gathered from authoritative sources, may be accepted 
as essentially exact, and his bold presentation as a fairly true 
picture of the dangerous situation of the Church at the time. 

On the same day (July 13, 11 74) that Henry publicly 
expiated his share in Becket's murder, his Scottish opponent, 
William the Lion, was defeated and taken prisoner near Alnwick. 
At Henry's command, a clerk named Jordan Fantosme had 
accompanied the army as a reporter to take note of the events, 
and shortly afterwards he wrote these down in lively narrative. 
His poem contains only about 2000 long lines, rhyming in 
clusters. Fantosme was a man of sound learning, a pupil of 
the celebrated Gilbert de la Porree at Paris, and "spiritual 
chancellor " of the diocese of Winchester. 

Henry's conquest of Ireland in n 72 also occasioned an Anglo- 
Norman poem before the end of the century. It was written 
by an anonymous author, who profited by information received 
from Morice Regan, interpreter of the Irish King Dermod, 
accessible to him apparently in a written record of the events, 
possibly in metrical form. This work does not carry the history 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 125 

regularly beyond 11 76, but was probably not completed before 
1225. The author seems to have written independently of 
Giraldus Cambrensis, and though his book is incomplete, ill- 
preserved in a unique manuscript, and of no great literary merit, 
it is important for the information it contains. 

In France the best historical writing of the mediaeval 
period was stimulated by the Crusades. The admirable work 
of Villehardouin on the Conquest of Constantinople dealt with 
the events of the fourth Crusade, from 1198 to 1207. Later 
the lovable Joinville wrote in his peculiarly charming way of 
the sixth Crusade, in which his almost equally lovable but 
more austere master, St. Louis, figured so prominently. And 
other important accounts of expeditions to the East witness to 
the eagerness of the French public to hear of the marvellous 
efforts of their compatriots to deliver the Holy City. One of 
the earliest of all (nearly 11,000 lines) deals with the third 
Crusade, in which Richard of England played the leading part. 
It was written by one of his followers, probably a jongleur, called 
Ambrose, and is entitled the Histoire de la Guerre Sainte. The 
author always pictures the struggle from Richard's point of 
view, and his work deserves mention here not only on that 
account, but because it was almost immediately put into Latin 
(the Itinerarium Regis Richardi) by a prior of the Church of 
the Holy Trinity at London, named Richard. This work, 
genuinely historical, contrasts strangely with the fabulous account 
of the Lionhearted as given in the metrical romance already 
mentioned, of which the French original, written after 1230, 
is now lost. 

Of all the Anglo-Norman historiograpical poems, one of the 
most interesting and valuable is one of the latest, namely, the 
Life of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Regent of England 
during Henry III.'s minority, who died in 12 19 at the age 
of eighty. Inasmuch as this admirable man so long occupied 
a conspicuous position among the nobles of England, a detailed 
account of his life (over 19,000 lines), based on trustworthy 



126 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

contemporary information, is of extreme value to the historian 
of the social and political life of the period. A favourite of 
monarchs, a leader in important wars, a wise administrator 
under the most difficult circumstances, a public personage of 
great distinction, his life was of unusual interest, and fortunately 
it was worthily told. The poem was composed about 1226 
at the request of the Earl's eldest son, mainly from material 
furnished the author by John of Early (Berkshire), Marshal's 
friend and comrade. The poet's language shows him to have 
been a native of France, though the unique manuscript of the 
work is that of an English scribe. He was probably a. writer 
by profession, perhaps a tourney herald, whose duties had by 
that time so widened as to include the production of literary 
works, and whose life of travel and constant association with 
people of prominence were helpful in their preparation. It may 
be noted in passing that such lives as these are trustworthy 
records. It is a common misapprehension, inherited from the 
Middle Ages, that Latin histories are more reliable than those 
in the vulgar tongue. The air of learned dignity that the 
former possess often leads the reader to over-estimate, while 
the simple colloquialism of the latter as frequently leads him 
to under-estimate, a document's worth. 

Similarly, a life of the Black Prince was written in French 
verse about 1386 by the army herald of Sir John Chandos, Con- 
stable of Aquitaine. The author probably witnessed with his own 
eyes many of the events that he narrates. 

After the thirteenth century there was little historical writing 
in Anglo-French. Apart from Langtoft, already referred to, but 
one other chronicler need be mentioned, namely, Nicholas 
Trivet (Trevet), whose work is familiar to English scholars as the 
source of the story of Constance in Chaucer and Gower. Trivet 
was born in Norwich, the son of an itinerant justice. He 
studied at Oxford and Paris, and is said to have later become 
a Dominican prior at London. He was a man of wide repute 
for his learning and cultivation, well read in classical as well as 



Hi ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 127 

in theological literature, and expressed himself with clearness 
and ease. Many of his works are not yet published. The 
French chronicle that here particularly concerns us was written 
for the use of the Princess Mary, daughter of Edward L, who 
became a nun of Avesbury in 1285. 

Important not for their literary value, but because of their 
malign influence in spreading untrustworthy historical informa- 
tion throughout England, are the numerous French composi- 
tions known as Brutes, written mostly in the early part of the 
fourteenth century. Some are very brief, consisting of little 
more than a catalogue of the kings of the island, with their chief 
exploits. Others are largely abridgments of Geoffrey. The 
most popular sort, however, not only included much of Geoffrey 
freely handled, but later, even recent, events. One of these, 
translated into English, was printed by Caxton in 1480, under 
the heading of The Cronycles of England, and long remained 
a standard authority. Similar in foundation is the French Scala 
cronica of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton, put together by tha 
undaunted warrior about 1355, when he was imprisoned i 
Edinburgh. 

Finally, it should be observed that English kings, even in t' " 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, seem to have preferred Fren 06 
to native chronicles of their doings. Froissart we shall not ( e;r 
cuss here. But it is in place to note how, exactly a cenr 
after Sir Thomas Gray, in 1455, Sir Jehan de Waurin prep; c 
a Recueil, or Complete History of Great Britain, though r & e 
too prolix and full of absurdities to demand further atten 
French chronicles of London from 1259 to 1343 are :0te 
preserved. '> an 

T)OUt 

id of 
Political Poems and Satires , r f 

Numerous political songs were written in French in FJ ° 
after the loss of Normandy. A Song of the Church % been 
denounces the taxes that, with the consent of the ;,ndrec * 



128 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

Henry III. levied on the clergy in his vain attempt to secure 
for one of his sons the throne of Sicily. Another (c. 1263) 
enumerates with praise many barons opposed to the King, 
among them the chivalrous Simon de Montfort, a lament for 
whose death appeared shortly after the . battle of Evesham. 
During the reign of Edward I. dissatisfaction with the times 
was voiced in a French ballad ; but regret at Edward's loss was 
soon after expressed by another poet apprehensive of the future. 
The notorious vices of the monks were keenly satirised in an 
amusing piece, LOrdre de Bel Aise, which advanced the claims 
of a new order emphasising the characteristic sins of all the 
others. Sometimes French and Latin were blended in macaronic 
verse. A Song on the Tailors, thus constructed, denounces the 
extravagance in dress of Henry III.'s time; another, the taxes 
^levied by Edward I. for the Flemish War. Latin, French, and 
tEnglish, all three appear in a song on the times of Edward II. 
rt Satire flourished among the Normans as among the Norse 
]ynd Provencal. Even kings were not exempt from sneers, and 
inid to safeguard their reputations by treating generously those 
foi a position to do them harm. For poets did not wait for a 
theevance to grow cold, but struck' while the iron was hot and 
to ih bold courage. Sometimes they suffered sadly in conse- 

nce. Ordericus tells us that Henry I. submitted a knight, 
vers de la Barre, to fierce punishment for having composed 
stabilwts holding the prince up to ridicule: in 11 24 he con- 
eyesned him to lose his eyes; but rather than submit to such 

/re, the unfortunate man dashed his head against his prison 
in A. 

one 'rom the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we have many 
Trive -French satirical poems, which concerned themselves more 
sourcthe exposure of social than political abuses : dits, debates, 
was b-s, reveries, and the like, the work usually of vagabond 
studiei Often women were treated with cynical scorn : all 
a Doix ill qualities were attributed to them, and married life 
for his nted dark. It is noteworthy, however, that in England 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 129 

the sex did not lack defenders. One writer on La Bonte des 
Femmes even tried to prove that Adam was more guilty than 
Eve. He calls down melancholy and mischief, " anguish within 
and without," on all traducers of women, and certainly, if his 
prayers were heard, many were afflicted. The French, it may 
finally be said, indulged in mockery of the English (cf. La Paix 
aux Anglais, La Charte aux Anglais), getting particular amuse- 
ment from the way their rivals spoke their common tongue. The 
English retorted rather more heavily, sneering at the French for 
their meanness, stinginess, lechery, and lack of honour. The 
wars between the two nations gave rise to poems vaunting one 
side at the other's expense. The Vows of the Heron (1338) 
was written by a partisan of Robert of Artois, to show his 
master's part in provoking the English monarch to war with 
France. 

Religious Works 

From the beginning of the twelfth century the Bible was 
made accessible in parts or as a whole to the Anglo-Normans 
in their own tongue. The two oldest French versions of the - 
Psalms were then executed in England, one by an Edwin, whoe 
was probably a monk of Canterbury. Due also to islanders areir 
two poetical paraphrases of the Bible, in decasyllabic couplet'le 
or monorhymes. In Stephen's time, Samson de Nanteuil prc^h 
duced for an English lady, Adelaide of Conde (mistress fge 
Horncastle in Lincolnshire), a version of the Proverbs 
Solomon, in short rhymed couplets, accompanied by an intereote 
ing commentary in the same metre. An excellent prose versi, an 
of the Books of Samuel and Kings is preserved in a manuscnout 
written in England not long after. An Anglo-French translatd of 
of the Apocalypse of St. John is dated at the beginning of »r of 
thirteenth century. About 1250 Robert of Gretham (the au d of 
likewise of a large theological work, the Corset) versified in; been 
Miroir those parts of the Gospels used in the Sunday servicendred 



130 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

added to them a long commentary. Robert was the chaplain, it 

appears, of a Lord Alein and a Lady Aline, neither of whom 

could read Latin. The former, quite properly, liked theology; 

but the latter had a frivolous taste for chansons de geste. It was 

to provide her with better reading that the author composed the 

Miroir. He mentioned his own name in connection with it 

solely to ask for readers' prayers on his behalf. In the latter 

half of the same century were written in French two metrical 

versions of the Gospel of Nicodemus and other apocryphal 

matter, such as the legends of the Holy Rood. Verse, moreover, 

was extensively used for homiletic and theological purposes. 

Apart from short treatises on the Seven Deadly Sins, the Pains 

i of Hell, the Signs of Judgment, and such dismal themes, we 

e find paraphrases of the Creed, Ave Maria, and the like — dull 

le certainly, and useful only in presenting the precepts of the Church 

E in short compass suitable for recitation or chant. 

i 

n( Legends and Lives of Saints 

ir.ic 

fo i The Normans seem to have been particularly fond of religious 

tbe^.narfatives : they were preeminent in the early production of 

to h egends and saints' lives. Their choice of subject was apparently 

ndictated at first by motives of national concern. Wace, for ex- 
ver. mple, wrote the Life of St. Nicholas because of its peculiar 
stah/hterest to his fellow-countrymen. St. Nicholas was a friend of 
eyemaariners, and on this account appealed to a nation of sea-faring 

jrelk; in 1087, moreover, his bones had been recovered by a 
in A mpany of Normans in Lycia and taken by them to southern 
one ro-ly — an exploit the fame of which still echoed throughout Nor- 
Trive-I.ndy. Similarly, Wace wrote of the Immaculate Conception, 
sourahsause the feast in memory of that event was first celebrated 
was hi William the Conqueror in the Abbey of Ramsey. According 
studie. *»t. Anselm, this was due to the interposition of the Virgin in 
a Don iir of Norman sailors about to perish in a storm, 
for hisnt('o us it is significant that the Anglo-Normans speedily 



Ill ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 131 

adopted the old Celtic saints, and took pains to record their 
lives. Thus was perpetuated the very interesting tale of the 
voyage of St. Brendan, an ancient Celtic imram, or Odyssey, of 
the visit of a heathen hero to the Isles of the Blest, transformed 
into the journey of a Christian saint to paradise. This poem 
was written about 1125, on the basis of a Latin prose version by 
an ecclesiastic named Benedict, at the request of Queen Adelaide. 
Later, in the thirteenth century, it was redacted more than once 
on the Continent. At the end of the twelfth century and in the 
first half of that following, appeared Anglo-Norman Lives of 
the fifth-century Irish saint Modwenna, and the first British 
martyr St. Alban, who perished under Diocletian, with his friend 
Amphibal. 

In French was also perpetuated some of the hagiography of 
England. The Life of St. Edmund, the East-Anglian king who 
fell in 870 in strife with the Danes, was recounted by Denis 
Pyramus as a work of pious devotion in his old age. Before 
1245 a monk of Westminster composed for Eleanor of Provence 
a long poem on Edward the Confessor. The Lives of Becket 
have previously been discussed as being of more historical than 
purely hagiographical interest. Here, however, may be men- 
tioned the poems commemorating the supposed murder of the 
child Hugh of Lincoln in 1255 by Jews desirous of showing their 
contempt of Christ — an event to which Chaucer refers in his tale 
of the Prioress, of similar origin. Such works as these did much 
to arouse the popular indignation against the Jews, in large 
measure unjustified, which led to their expulsion in 1290. 

An English nun, Clemence of Barking (near London), wrote 
in the twelfth century a Life of St. Catherine ; not long after, an 
English canon, Guillaume de Berneville, one of St. Giles ; about 
1200 Simon de Fresne, a friend of Giraldus Cambrensis, told of 
St. George and the Dragon; before 12 16 Chardri, the author of 
the poem on Barlaam and Josaphaz, popularised the legend of 
the Sept Dormants, the seven youths of Ephesus, who, having been 
murdered by the Emperor Decius, awoke after two hundred 



132 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

years and lived long enough to confirm the miracle; in 1212-14, 
one Angier, a sub-deacon of St. Frideswide's, Oxford, translated 
faithfully into French verse the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, 
and added a Life of Gregory. 

Many other French lives of saints were written later in 
England. They have, however, little significance for us except 
as indicating that the taste for this form of literature was abiding, 
and that fashion dictated their continuous writing in the language 
of the refined. 

Didactic Works 

The chief characteristic of Anglo-Norman literature, taken as 
a whole, is its popular utilitarian and pious purpose. All sorts of 
treatises of instruction and edification appear, therefore, in abun- 
dance ; but, being mostly translations or dull compilations, their 
interest is small. So greatly, however, did they occupy the 
thoughts of mediaeval readers that they assume an importance 
in our eyes which is unjustified by their inherent merit. 

The oldest bit of Anglo-Norman verse extant is a Comput, or 
explanation of the calendar, prepared c. n 13 by one Philippe de 
Thaiin, a London clerk, who also wrote for Queen Adelaide, 
c. 1 125, a Bestiai?-e, the first treatise of the kind in French, 
describing the nature and " signification " of various animals. 
Lapidaries, discussing the medical properties of precious stones, 
or the allegorical meanings of the twelve of special scriptural 
significance, and other books of pseudo- science and the pro- 
perties of things, also became widely current. Three Anglo- 
Norman versions of the Disticha Catonis are extant, as well as 
sundry treatises on manners, books of medicine, courtesy, civility, 
falconry, chess, etc. Grammatical and orthographic manuals 
for use in learning French were prepared in England much 
earlier than in France. Noteworthy is one written about 1300 by 
a knight Walter (Gautier) of Bibbysworth, for a noble lady, Denise 
de Monchensi — verse being here employed, as so constantly else- 
where when it was ill suited. In the thirteenth century and 



hi ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 133 

later appeared numerous compends for instruction, some of 
them enormous in extent (e.g. La Lumiere as Lais of Peter 
of Peckham, the Secret des Secrets, Image du Monde, Petite 
Philosophie, etc.). An Anglo-French version exists of the 
Book of Sidrac the Philosopher, called the Book of the Fount of 
Knowledge. 

Lyrics and Debates 

Every encouragement, it has already been pointed out, was 
given in mediaeval England to the production of lyric love- 
poetry in the style cultivated with so much success in the south 
of France, but with much smaller results than one would expect. 
We have, indeed, some relics of the thirteenth century, an alle- 
gorical "complaint" in tercets of six syllables and a suite of 
seven love-songs, which may be merely illustrative of much erotic 
verse that has disappeared, or is not yet published. But it is likely 
that the Anglo-French, being, it would seem, less light-hearted 
and facile than the Provencal or the French of the Continent, 
did not yield themselves so readily to such composition. When 
they felt the influence of lyric devotion, which " courtly " songs 
persuasively instilled, they spent their emotions less on worldly 
love : in their passion they turned to the Holy Virgin, whom 
they endowed with all bodily grace and beauty of form, and 
offered themselves as her faithful servitors with the rapture of 
religious joy. Thus most permanently did the spirit of Provencal 
poetry manifest itself in England. Nowhere was the cult of the 
Virgin more developed : in her honour numerous poems were 
composed. We read in verse of her "Five Joys," of her "Com- 
plaint," of the events of her life, her assumption to heaven, and 
many wonderful, and some very tender, miracles performed by 
her power. Here we have pure lyrics, or lyrical narratives, 
betokening a fervid zeal and exalted mysticism. Songs on 
Jesus, the Saviour-Knight, reveal the same feudal spirit. 

This spirit appears likewise in a charming allegorical poem 
attributed to Bishop Grosseteste, the Chateau d Amour. 



134 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

The Castle of Love was the fairest ever created. It was established on a 
firm rock, and without was of three colours — never-fading green at the bottom, 
beautiful blue above, and rose-red at the top. Within, it was shining white. 
In the high tower was a throne of white ivory, and a well from which flowed 
healing streams to the people outside. There were four small towers, three 
bailies, and seven barbicans. This castle was the body of the sweet maiden 
Mary. It relied on the strength of her heart. The colours of its exterior 
betokened her belief, her fair humility, her glowing love. In the high tower, 
from which flowed streams of grace, sat God enthroned. The small towers 
represented the four cardinal virtues ; the bailies her maidenhood, chastity, 
and holy espousal ; the barbicans the opponents of. the seven deadly sins. As 
we read in an English translation : 

This is the Castle of love and liss, 
Of solace, of succour, of joy, and bliss, 
Of hope, of heal, of sikerness, 
And full of all sweetness. 

Its constable was Charity. In it the incarnate Son sought shelter against His 
three foes — the world, the flesh, and the devil — by which He was beset. 

The causes of the Saviour's Coming are brought out in a colloquy between 
the mighty King of Heaven, His four daughters — Mercy, Sooth, Right, and 
Peace, and His co-equal Son. Mercy pleads for the delivery of the thrall 
Man from sad imprisonment ; but Sooth and Right make objection ; where- 
upon Peace suggests a ransom. The wise Son, to terminate the trouble, offers 
to take the thrall's weeds and suffer in his place. 

The poem was written above all as a song of praise to Virgin 
and Son. In symbolic form it conveyed devoutly and sweetly to 
lay ears the chief points of the Christian faith, particularly such as 
concerned the vicarious redemption of fallen man. It was de- 
liberately written in "romance" for those who had "ne lettrure 
ne clergie," and was not expected to have much " savour " for a 
clerk. Yet it was soon turned into Latin ; and, for such as knew 
" neither French nor Latin " — so it is definitely stated — " for lewd 
men's behoof," it was afterwards put into English several times. 

Before Grosseteste, a troubadour of northern Italy had written 
a secular Chastel d' 'Amors, and in his time Guillaume de Lorris 
(t c. 1 240) composed the first part of the Roman de la Rose, which 
was to spread the principles of courtly love and the taste for 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 135 

allegory to all parts of Europe. These are present also in certain 
Anglo-French " debates " already referred to, De Blauncheflour et 
Florence, and De Melior et Idoitie, which discuss the same ques- 
tion as the Latin De Phillide et Flora, whether a knight or a 
clerk is the more worthy of a lady's love. In the Latin poem, the 
dispute is settled by the God of Love ; in the French, however, by 
the bird-champions of the two sides. In one case the verdict is in 
favour of the knight, in the other of the clerk. The last stanza 
of the De Blauncheflour et Florence asserts that the poem was 
written first in English by one Wanastre and translated into 
French by one Brykholle — an interesting and perhaps significant 
fact. In Melior et Idoine the scene is laid near Lincoln. The 
author begins by indicating the necessity of travel for one who 
wishes to have adventure and to learn of strange peoples : 

Ki plus loinz va, plus verra, 
, E plus des aventures savra. 

Jeo le sai bien, car prove l'ai ; 
En ma juvente m'en aloy 
En plusurs teres a oi'r 
Aventures pur retenir. 

This too is suggestive. Who were the men who wrote poems 
of this sort? Crusaders, perhaps, comrades of Richard Cceur 
de Lion and his troubadour friends — at least clerks of Vaga- 
bondia, who could and did communicate many foreign ideas to 
the English. "Adventure," says Chaucer, "is the mother of 
tidings." 

In the fourteenth century were composed in England, in 
imitation of the productions of contemporary French writers like 
Guillaume de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps, and Froissart, 
French works similar in inspiration to the courtly love-poetry of 
the troubadours — ballades, roundels, lyric lays, virelays, com- 
plaints, estampies, motets, etc.- — in general artificial, conventional, 
and monotonous, ringing eternal changes on the same threadbare 
themes, but of importance to us because in a measure they 
determined the productions of Chaucer, Gower, and other 



136 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

English writers who at first wrote in the same style. From 
Gower's pen we have fifty French ballades of quite exceptional 
grace. Such writings as these, however, are hardly our present 
concern. 

Drama 

Though a consecutive account of the early history of the 
drama must be postponed to the second volume of this work, 
it deserves notice here that the Normans in England helped in 
the formation of a national stage. The beginnings of the 
Christian drama, as is well known, are to be traced to adapta- 
tions of the liturgy, produced and acted by the clergy in Latin 
within the holy sanctuary. Before the Conquest Latin liturgical 
plays existed in England, as well as on the Continent ; but not 
until afterwards have we any trace of "mysteries" or "miracles." 
Indeed, in the twelfth century there seems to have been written 
in England the earliest extant mystery in the vulgar tongue, that, 
namely, which goes under the name of Adam. This remarkable 
work is composed of three parts : the Fall, the Death of Abel, and 
the Prophecies of Christ. Fortunately, in the unique manuscript 
in which it is preserved, are found detailed descriptions (in Latin) 
of the costumes and the tnise en scene. The prophets were dis- 
tinguished by their garb. Abraham wore white robes with a long 
beard ; Aaron was dressed as a bishop ; Moses bore the tables of 
stone. The poet was a man of uncommon talent ; the scene of 
the seduction of Eve by the serpent has especially won the critics' 
praise. Another Anglo-Norman mystery of later date and much 
less value is the Resurrection, which nevertheless has definite 
interest, if only because of a prologue in which the director 
explains to the spectators the arrangement of the stage, with the 
different " mansions " of the players. 



Here ends our rapid survey of extant French works produced 
by Englishmen. They have been grouped, it should be observed, 



ill ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 137 

in the manner that will be followed in the treatment of those 
in English, which we are next, and more amply, to examine. 
Before our study is ended, it will be manifest that there exists 
no truly significant production in the native vernacular from 
the time of the Conquest to Chaucer which is not an imitation 
of, or at least prefigured by, a work accessible to the polite in 
French. Throughout the whole period, then, that now occupies 
us, the chief language of literature for educated laymen was 
what we now regard as a foreign tongue. A very extraordinary 
situation no doubt, and so it seemed also to our forefathers. 
"I ween," said Robert of Gloucester about 1300, "that there 
are in all the world no countries that do not hold to their 
own speech save England alone." In this statement, however, 
he was hardly correct. At that very time French was used in 
Italy also, to the great disregard and disadvantage of its own 
vernacular. Dante's master, Brunetto Latini (1 230-1 294), em- 
ployed it in his encyclopaedic Tresor. In French, Rustician 
of Pisa compiled his compendium of Arthurian romance, and his 
friend Marco Polo of Genoa (1254- 1324) his book of Asiatic 
travel. French was, in truth, as Latini said, more " common 
to all people " and " more delightful " than any other vulgar 
speech in Western Europe. The esteem in which it was held in 
England is illustrated by the following passage of glowing praise 
from an English Matiiere de Langage of the fourteenth century : 

Le doulz francois, qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious language et plus 
noble parler, apres latin d'escole, qui soit ou monde et de tous genz mieulx 
prisee et amee que nul autre ; quar Dieux le fist si douce et amiable princi- 
palement a l'oneur et loenge de luy mesmes. Et pour ce il peut comparer au 
parler des angels du ciel, pour la grand doulceur et biaultee d'icel. 

Certainly of English even the most ardent supporter 
of its use could make no such eulogy. English was then a 
timid speech. In different parts of the island its accents 
sounded unlike, its inflections contrasted strangely, its elements 
were disturbingly diverse. Outside of limited districts in 
England any one dialect was scarcely intelligible, and all were 



138 ANGLO-NORMAN AND chap. 

counted as mere gibberish abroad, whereas French was under- 
stood not only by all cultivated men at home, but everywhere 
in the centres of Europe. With it alone an Englishman was 
well provided for foreign travel; with it he could address in 
his works what Gower calls the "universite de tout le monde." 
No wonder it was earnestly studied by all who had any outlook, 
who saw even from afar the ways of the world. If we consider, 
in addition to this, the feeling of legitimate inheritance in its 
use that the English must have had, the desire of every one to 
master French appears to us not only intelligible but wise. 

It remains to dispel a common misapprehension that the 
French of England were all, or even largely, of Norman descent, 
and the works they read peculiarly Norman in character. The 
army that the Conqueror led at Hastings was by no means 
composed exclusively of soldiers from his own duchy; and later 
from almost every part of France, from the lie de France as 
well as from Brittany, Maine, Guienne, Gascony, Aquitaine, and 
Poitou — once possessions of the English crown, knights and 
soldiers, artists, artisans, and traders, to say nothing of clergy, 
journeyed to England to advance themselves where opportunity 
was rich. With them they carried the tastes and sentiments 
to which they were used. And these are mirrored in the 
literature they favoured. It was not, above all, that which pre- 
vailed in Caen, Bayeux, and Rouen, but the style of Paris, 
then the paradise of the learned and literary world, that gave 
most delight. It was the works of such widely-famed poets 
as Crestien de Troyes (in Champagne), Guillaume de Lorris, and 
Jean de Meung (on the Loire) that were generally acclaimed. 
Cultivated Englishmen throughout the Middle Ages were 
acquainted with the finest productions of all France. 

The history of architecture in England offers an instructive 
parallel to the history of literature. The architectural achieve- 
ments of the mediaeval period are not all in a single mode. 
Here also we must distinguish between Anglo-Norman and 
Anglo-French. The Anglo-Normans erected many handsome 



in ANGLO-FRENCH LITERATURE 139 

edifices in the modified romanesque which they brought with 
them ; but as early as the twelfth century pure Gothic struc- 
tures were raised alongside of these, and eventually the latter 
style prevailed : the solid Norman with its round arches yielded 
in popularity to the more graceful pointed type of the lie de 
France. In the same way romances of love and adventure in 
the twelfth century developed alongside of rhymed chronicles and 
didactic treatises, refined lyrics and allegory alongside of solid 
legends and lives of saints. Moreover, even as the stately 
magnificence of early Gothic was later marred by over-careful 
decoration, so in the second part of the Middle Ages the dignity 
of French romance was diminished by its extravagance, and the 
impressive simplicity of the older poetry disturbed by excessive 
elaboration and undue emphasis on technique. The works of 
Chaucer, like the insular types of Gothic, show the reviving 
originality of the English people establishing a new national 
style on a foundation of borrowed art. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



A uniform literary language, or anything approaching it, did 
not exist in England before the death of Chaucer in 1400. 
From very early times Englishmen had written Latin correctly, 
sometimes with elegance, and many of their works were current 
throughout Europe. For a century or two after the Conquest, 
pure French was employed by the cultivated with natural ease; 
and even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the 
ordinary French spoken in England had become sadly corrupt 
as compared with the standard speech of Paris, it was essentially 
the same in the various parts of the land. But with English 
the situation was different. At no time from the Conquest to 
the death of Chaucer was there any one dominant form of 
speech ; at no time did men of letters acknowledge a common 
standard, or strive for uniformity when they wrote. Even at 
the close of the fifteenth century, Caxton was greatly troubled 
by the variations in the vernacular, and found it "hard to 
please every man because of diversity and change of language." 
And not before 1589, when the Art of English Poesie attributed 
to Puttenham appeared, do we meet with any definite statement 
that one particular dialect was adhered to by literary men. The 
great divergence of English as commonly spoken in the north 
and south from " the usual speech of the court, and that of 
London within sixty miles, and not much above," the author 
fully recognised, but he exalted the last because no other was 
140 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



" so courtly or so current," and bore witness that this was then 
frequently "written" by "gentlemen and others," if not by the 
common people of every shire. 

In Middle English are preserved works in several fairly 
distinct dialects continuing in the main the divisions of Saxon 
speech. The dialect of the north, however, included a larger 
district than the ancient Northumbrian. It was spoken in 
the Scottish Lowlands, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, 
in the north of Lancashire, and very probably in parts of 
Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. To the end of the fourteenth 
century the "language of the Lowlands, which is always called 
Inglis, is hardly to be distinguished from the Northern dialect. 
The real Scottish dialect begins about the middle of the fifteenth 
century, but was not so called until the sixteenth. 

The field of the old Mercian came to be divided into two 
slightly divergent dialects called East and West Midland, ex- 
tending in the west to the Welsh border, in the south to the 
banks of the Thames. At the middle of the thirteenth century, 
London, the capital of England since the time of Henry II., 
spoke essentially a south-east Saxon dialect; but as time went 
on London English lost its southern character, and at the end of 
the fourteenth century shared the characteristics of the Midland 
dialects, though with definite peculiarities. 

The third chief division, that of the South, corresponding 
in general to the West Saxon and Kentish, embraces the whole 
territory south of the Thames, including the western counties 
of Gloucester, and (in part) Herefordshire and Worcestershire. 
Here too, however, are observed two groups : one, somewhat 
indefinite in its limitations, in the west and south, and another 
in Kent and the neighbouring district. 

It is easier, it must be admitted, thus to state the confines 
of the various dialects than to determine where particular works 
belong. Two things above all are troublesome — first, the trans- 
formation that the records have undergone ; and second, actual 
intermixture in the author's speech. Only in very rare instances 



I 4 2 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE chap. 

{e.g. the Ormulum and the Ayenbite of Inwyt) have we what 
appear to be autograph manuscripts. Usually texts must be 
studied in transcriptions of transcriptions, in which are manifest 
not only the blunders of copyists, but also the wilful changes 
in readings, the interpolations, and contractions of a succession 
of redactors. Scribes worked with great freedom, and not 
seldom transposed a whole poem from one dialect to another, 
making extensive alterations even in the rhymes, which are 
on the whole the best guide to original forms. Poems often 
appear in versions extraordinarily unlike, and the determination 
of the original dialect is sometimes guesswork pure and simple. 
Particularly is this the case with the productions of the minstrels, 
who never hesitated to adapt their narratives of whatever sort 
to the tastes and understanding of their hearers in different 
parts of the land. Fortunately, in such cases the determination 
of dialect is of very slight consequence to the student of 
literature. 

Most worthy of consideration (particularly in connection with 
extant English romances) is the following lament that Richard of 
Bury voiced on behalf of his own well-beloved books : 

Our purity of race is diminished every day, while new authors' names 
are imposed upon us by worthless compilers, translators, and transformers, 
and losing our ancient nobility, while we are reborn in successive genera- 
tions, we become wholly degenerate, and thus against our will the name of 
some wretched stepfather is affixed to us, and the sons are robbed of the 
names of their true fathers. . . . Ah ! how often ye pretend that we who 
are ancient are but lately born, and try to pass us off as sons who are really 
fathers, calling us who have made you clerks the production of your studies. 
Indeed, we have derived our origin from Athens, though we are now sup- 
posed to be from Rome, for Carmentis was always the pilferer of Cadmus, 
and we who were but lately born in England, shall to-morrow be born again 
in Paris, and thence being carried to Bologna, shall obtain an Italian origin, 
based upon no affinity of blood. Alas ! how ye commit us to treacherous 
copyists to be written, how corruptly ye read us and kill us by medication, 
while ye supposed ye were correcting us with pious zeal. Oftentimes we 
have to endure barbarous interpreters, and those who are ignorant of foreign 
idioms presume to translate us from one language into another ; and thus all 



iv THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 143 

propriety of speech is lost and our sense is shamefully mutilated contrary 
to the meaning of the author ! Truly noble would have been the condition 
of books, if it had not been for the presumption of the tower of Babel, if but 
one kind of speech had been transmitted by the whole human race. 

A mixture of dialects is apparent in writers who lived on the 
borderland between two districts, or in such as had emancipated 
themselves from provincialism by travel and study. Those who 
in their works were deliberately serving local interests, adhered 
most closely to the dialect of their own region. Naturally, 
the language of the capital had much advantage over any rival, 
and, as before in Athens, Rome, and Paris, the commercial 
and legislative centre of the realm now again set the standard 
of national speech. By good fortune, it was in the London 
dialect that Chaucer consistently wrote (although he occasionally 
used Kentish forms), and so great was his preeminence, and 
that of other prominent authors like Gower and Wycliffe, who 
used the same dialect, that writers throughout England gradually 
yielded their local custom to higher authority. For centuries 
men still spoke as they would according to inherited habit, but 
in writing they fashioned their phrases to accord with the con- 
ventions which had slowly established themselves at the chief 
seats of commerce and cultivation. 

' So far as the language of Middle English is concerned, it 
is usually divided into three periods : early, standard, and late, 
from 1 100 to 1250, from 1250 to 1400, and from 1400 to 1500 
respectively. The first period was the time of greatest linguistic 
unlikeness. Too few monuments exist to enable us to judge 
of the state of the language in the North in this period. In 
the South, however, and to a much less degree in the Midland, 
the inflections of nouns and pronouns steadily persisted ; and 
final e, with sound-value, was in general retained. In the South, 
much more than in the Midland (especially the North Midland), 
a considerable number of French words then appeared in the 
vocabulary. In the second period the great literary dialect 
groups and linguistic centres were formed. In the North the 



■■ 



144 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE chap, iv 

inflection of nouns was limited to one prevailing type; in the 
South there were usually two. Unaccented final e is still much 
retained in the South, but is almost wiped out in the North. 
Numerous French words have by this time taken their place 
in common speech, even in the North. Between 1400 and 1500 
dialects gradually disappeared from the literature, and inflections 
approached the forms of modern English. Final unaccented e 
was disregarded even in London and the South. Scottish at last 
came to be distinct from the English of the North. 

The chronological table appended to this volume will readily 
show the student when and where were composed the different 
English works of which mention will be made in the ensuing 
pages. Here a word of general orientation will suffice. 

In 1066 English literature of the Saxon style seems to have 
been too decrepit to resist successfully the domination of the 
foreign types then introduced. What little remains of English 
dating from the next hundred years is chiefly religious or 
didactic in character; and in literary composition of this kind 
the South took the lead. It was in the neighbourhood of old 
Wessex, where King Alfred's influence had made itself felt, and 
where literature, stimulated by him, had been produced by others 
later, that the first stirrings of creative impulse are "to be seen. 
The shadow that had rested over Northumbria since its early 
literary supremacy in the seventh and eighth centuries was 
rudely overthrown, it required five hundred years and more 
permanently to dispel. No significant English work was com- 
posed in the North until the end of the thirteenth century. 

An effort to discover the temper of different parts of the 
country by considering the nature of extant productions in 
the several dialects has unfortunately yielded too uncertain 
results to make them worth record. Something valuable might 
be said of the character of writings in the West Midland, 
where conditions specially favourable to original work existed ; 
but, in the main, dialect is the least instructive aspect of a 
Middle English poem that the literary critic can dwell upon. 



CHAPTER V 



Without doubt the most comprehensive and significant divi- 
sion of mediaeval vernacular literature is that which, accepting 
a broad interpretation, we call romance. No literary productions 
of the Middle Ages are so characteristic, none so perennially 
attractive, as those that treat romantically of heroes and heroines 
of bygone days. 

Jean Bodel, who, towards the end of the twelfth century, 
wrote in verse of the wars of Charlemagne against the Saxons, 
has happily revealed the literary inclination of the cultivated of 
his time in the following significant words : 

Ne sont que trois matieres a nul home entendant, 
De France, et de Bretagne, et de Rome la grant. 

And these words have been so often quoted that they have come 
to be universally accepted as adequate titles for the leading divi- 
sions of romance. We now use the term " matter of France " 
to denote the narratives chiefly concerned with the Emperor 
Charlemagne, his peers and vassals, the struggles of French 
heroes. The " matter of Britain " has to do chiefly with King 
Arthur and his knights, the chivalrous exploits of British warriors, 
accounts based largely on tales of Celtic origin, or on traditions 
current in Great or Little Britain. Finally, the "matter of 
Rome " suggests at once that the stories it embodies deal with 
the wonderful achievements of antiquity. These different 
i4S J - 



146 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

" matters " we shall discuss in the order given by Bodel, 
developing, however, two more by separating from the matter 
of Britain stories of Germanic origin, and from that of Rome 
those that have their source in the Orient. We shall deal most 
particularly, of course, with the records in English speech ; but 
we shall find ourselves forced by the very nature of the subject to 
survey the whole field, and to consider works in several languages, 
in order to estimate justly those in our own. 

We begin with the matter of France, which, though in its 
inception epic in style, was transformed into the likeness of 
romance, and by the time it was treated in English was hardly 
distinguishable therefrom. Obviously, the Carlovingian cycle is 
" popular " as the other cycles are not. f. Here is literature that in 
the beginning was composed both for and by the people, the 
preservative as well as the product of their communal self- 
consciousness. It is characterised by the directness of their 
thought, shows the satisfaction in the extravagant and grotesque 
that they exhibit, and betrays the spontaneous enthusiasm of 
their social and religious emotions. The mediaeval cycles of 
Britain and Rome, on the contrary, resulted from the creative 
imaginations of individuals of, or under the influence of, the 
aristocratic class, the deliberate refashioning of material of 
ancient times to gratify a sophisticated taste — material, more- 
over, not only ancient but foreign, calculated rather to inspire 
feelings of bewildered delight than, like the national epic, heart- 
moving patriotism and eagerness to do. Yet, as has just been 
said, these various cycles of narrative appear much the same in 
the end. In the history of their gradual change is mirrored the 
development of civilisation in Western Europe. 

The Matter of France 

A version of the Chanson dc Roland seems to have been the 
first song that the conquering Normans chanted in England : 
it inspired them to victory in the famous Battle of Hastings, 



ROMANCE 147 



when Harold fell, and a momentous epoch of foreign domination 
was ushered in. Then, Wace tells us, a minstrel Taillefer rode 
before the host, singing " of Charlemagne, and of Roland, and 
of Oliver, and of the knights who died at Ronceval." The proud 
warriors of William no doubt thought that in moving against 
England they were acting like the old heroes of Northern France, 
with whose fame they had long been familiar ; their leader was 
to them another Charlemagne • he too fought under the banner 
of the Church, with the approval of the Pope ; he too was a 
successful chieftain, a wise administrator, an enlightened ruler, 
like the historic emperor of the Franks. So, likewise, not long 
ago, consideration of Charlemagne's more or less legendary 
achievements fired the imagination of the great Napoleon, 
and encouraged the inordinate ambition that was the soul of 
his career. 

The Normans had a share in the development of the national 
epic of France. They regarded it as theirs before they came to 
England ; and, during their close connection with the Continent, 
they preserved it as a record of their race. But as the abyss 
between them and their kin abroad yawned wider and wider 
with the passing years, as they came more and more deeply to 
feel antagonism for the French, they grew disposed to regard 
Charlemagne as the hero of their opponents, and in course of 
time ceased altogether to sing of him as their own. Arthur, 
King of the Britons, they exalted instead — a rival to Charlemagne 
in brilliancy, Christian virtues, and imperial sway j and the Saxons 
and Danes followed their lead. 

The English, like the Germans and other peoples, revered 
the memory of Charlemagne, particularly because they regarded 
him as the first great Christian king. In the interests of the 
Church the different nations of the world made common cause. 
And Charlemagne, the most distinguished Defender of the Faith, 
they heard of with the joy of devotion. His exploits were 
brilliant, vastly interesting in themselves to bold warriors, but 
they were enhanced to universal importance as struggles in behalf 



148 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

of Christianity. Under these circumstances it is not surprising 
to find the national element less conspicuous in foreign redactions 
of French poems than the religious or purely warlike. In the 
ancient epic of Roland, the incitement of the French was as 
much for the honour of " la douce France " as in behalf of God ; 
but foreigners minimised this motive. The Emperor's followers 
they represented first and foremost as proselytising zealots, not 
averse to martyrdom, rather than as patriots stimulated primarily 
by love of their land. 

The cycle of poems concerning Charlemagne, his peers and 
vassals, is composed in the main of what are called chansons de 
geste. This name indicates two essential qualities of their nature. 
They were in the beginning " songs," the outpourings of the 
people's thought under strong emotional impulse ; they were 
anonymous and impersonal; they voiced public, not private 
sentiment ; they echoed and established national opinion. Then, 
again, they originally dealt with the gesta, or deeds of real 
warriors : they were records of actual events. In course of time, 
however, the final, significance of the name chanson de geste in 
both its parts was changed. The early cantilenae, or lyrical songs 
in chorus, which first bore it, were transformed by professional 
poets (jongieurs) from the eleventh century on, and stamped with 
personality. They were recited, to the accompaniment of music, 
by individuals. In the hands of trouveres later, for some three 
centuries, they were continuously remodelled, and adapted for 
private reading as well as public recital. Finally, they were 
rewritten and printed as chap-books in prose. The contents of 
the poems likewise steadily underwent change. Geste came soon 
to mean an epic poem, or a cycle dealing with an "epic family." 
By a further degeneration in England, it was loosely used for 
almost any sort of poem, or even prose tale. Men spoke of the 
Geste of King Horn and the Geste of Robin Hood; they prepared 
"jest-books." 

The chansons de geste in their early forms were distinguished 
from the chivalric romances by their peculiar metre. They were 



ROMANCE 149 



composed in clusters of decasyllabic verses of very unequal extent 
(varying from a few to hundreds of lines), joined by a uniform 
assonance. After a while, rhyme was introduced, at first spas- 
modically, then to the transformation of the whole. In the end, 
as we have seen, the old epics were diluted in prose. Nowhere 
is the long assonanced line employed in an English Charlemagne 
romance. Alliteration, a natural metre for such warlike epics, 
is only fitfully used. Otherwise, very divergent forms of verse 
appear, the septenarius with internal rhyme, various forms of 
tail-rhyme-strophe, short rhymed couplets, and even the four- 
line ballad measure. Within the same poems, as they now 
exist, different metres are sometimes combined. 

The most important of the whole cycle is the oldest preserved, 
the famous Chanson de Roland, which is thought to have taken 
shape about the middle of the eleventh century. It relates the 
disaster that overtook part of Charlemagne's army at Ronceval, 
a pass in the Pyrenees, in which the hero Roland, above all his 
fellows, gained for himself immortal renown, and the traitor 
Ganelon lasting disgrace. The story has but slight historical 
foundation. The chronicler Eginhard, in his authentic record 
of Charles's life, informs us that on August 15, 778, the rear- 
guard of a great French host, returning from a triumphant 
campaign in Spain, were set upon and destroyed by a body of 
Gascon mountaineers, and in the struggle Roland, the "Count 
of the Marches of Brittany," with' other French leaders, lost their 
lives. These incidents were amazingly modified in later literary 
presentation. In the era of the Crusades, it was natural to picture 
the Basques, who opposed the French, as heathen Saracens. 
They were represented as having a force enormously superior to 
the Christians, and their attack was successful only because 
of the treasonable conduct of one of the peers themselves : 
Ganelon, for mean reward, was led to play the part of Judas 
Iscariot amongst them. The scene of the conflict was altered 
to make defeat more reasonable ; the armament of the host was 
adapted to contemporary custom; a suitable revenge on their 



150 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

opponents, of course, the French achieved ; and Ganelon met 
the fate he deserved. God sided with His army, and answered 
the prayer of the patriarchal Emperor when, like Joshua, he 
begged that the sun might stand still. Roland, though historic- 
ally inconspicuous in the battle, was made the centre of the 
narrative. He is pictured as the nephew of Charlemagne, the 
object of Ganelon's hate, the chief combatant, through whose 
valorous rashness in not sounding his ivory horn to warn the 
army of his plight, the tragedy was superinduced. Through the 
might of his noble sword Durendal and his own strong arm, he 
wrought wonders while his life endured. Oliver, wiser yet not 
less valiant, is placed beside him as a contrasting companion. 
He is the brother of Roland's beloved, Aude, who is introduced 
at the close, dying of sorrow, to enforce the poetic pathos of 
the encounter. Charlemagne in 778 was only thirty-six; but he 
is conceived as a venerable king a la barbe fleurie, even two 
hundred years of age. Nevertheless, he engages actively in 
battle, and has all the attributes of majesty. We see him 
seated in an arm-chair of gold — grave, silent, determined, 
unrelenting — an imposing, grandiose figure. 

The extant form of the epic was originally composed, it seems, 
in Brittany, and later worked over in Anjou by a Frenchman of 
the lie de France. In his hands it was infused with a spirit of 
nationality and royalty, foreign to the early songs. The redactor 
worked at will. His effort was to make the scene dramatic, and, 
despite certain inconsistencies in the treatment, he displayed 
great art. Though unadorned and sometimes monotonous, his 
style is dignified and impressive. The constant use of formula? 
and conventions does not destroy the effect of his simple, 
vigorous lines. Above all noteworthy are two qualities of the 
poem : its pervasive religious tone and its exalted expression of 
nationality. It is permeated with the intense religious convictions 
of the age in which it was shaped ; it contains the finest fruit of 
early French patriotism. Warlike and vehement emotions blend 
with tenderness and subduing pathos to voice the sentiments of 



ROMANCE IS I 



a strong and dominant race, yet one easily swayed by noble 
precept and example. 

The Chanson de Roland is best preserved in a manuscript at 
Oxford, written in England in the twelfth century. It was, we 
may be certain, a delight to the Anglo-Normans, and to their 
descendants. When acquaintance with French was no longer 
general in the land, at the end of the fourteenth century, or 
thereabouts, the narrative was reproduced in the English ver- 
nacular in a poem now but fragmentarily preserved. The theme 
is freely treated ; and it is not evident whether the author used 
simply a rhymed version, which had supplanted the assonanced 
one in popular favour, or this earlier one as well. He had plainly 
very little talent, though he showed considerable independence of 
manner. The characters are more conventional and common- 
place ; the art of the style is infinitely less ; there is no skill in 
handling the metre, no epic sweep, no terse phrasing. An 
incident introduced from the so-called Chronicle of Turpin, the 
picture of the supposed revelry of the French knights with 
Saracen women on the eve of the battle, afforded the writer a 
welcome occasion to denounce wine and women, if not song. 

One fact about the Roland, which detracts from its merit as 
a national epic, is that it voices the sentiments of only a restricted 
class. It is purely feudal in tone, appealing primarily to men of 
arms. The bourgeoisie no doubt enjoyed it; but it was not 
written with them in mind. Primarily for them, on the contrary, 
was composed, it appears, another ancient poem, of the second 
half of the eleventh century, the Pilgrimage of Charlemagne. 
Apart from its inherent interest as an entertaining story, it has 
value as an example of what we may call early middle- class 
literature, as the first specimen in extant writing of l' 'esprit gaulots, 
and as an illustration of how material of totally different character 
can be combined to good effect when a writer possesses both wit 
and skill. The jongleurs not only recited in the halls of barons 
for their entertainment, or on the field of battle for their inspira- 
tion ; some at least of them condescended to amuse the common 



152 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

people at public fairs. At one of these assemblies held at 
St. Denis, near Paris, was recited a tale of how Charlemagne 
once travelled in majesty to the Holy City, where he was treated 
with infinite respect, and returned laden with invaluable relics. 
Into the same narrative, however, was interwoven a comic section 
which must have aroused as much laughter as the other part 
devotion. The king is pictured as visiting Constantinople on 
his way, and as there getting himself into a sorry plight by his 
drunkenness and vainglory, so that he only extricated himself 
from ruin by means of miracles wrought for him by God. The 
incongruous elements are of divergent source : the serious part 
is based on heroic tradition ; the comic, it has recently been 
shown, is probably the transformation of a mythical tale. 

We have in English in a late ballad redaction an ancient story 
called King Arthur and King Cornwall, which seemingly throws 
light on the sort of material the minstrel adapted to his humorous 
purpose. It tells how Arthur, being nettled by Guinevere's 
remark that there is in a place that she knows of but will not 
reveal, a Round Table vastly finer than his, swears never to sleep 
two nights in one place until he sees it. With several com- 
panions he sets out in disguise, and finally comes to Cornwall, 
where at a magician's house one night they make great brags, 
which they would ignominiously have failed to accomplish had it 
not been for a helpful friend (or rather fiend) whose services they 
managed to enlist. The most conspicuous feature of this ballad, 
as well as of the Pilgrimage, is the extravagant gabs which in true 
Norseman fashion both Arthur's knights and Charlemagne's peers 
are represented as making readily when merry, and lamenting 
ruefully when sober. Constantinople (a regular name for the 
Otherworld, where are revolving castles and such wonders) was on 
the route to Jerusalem, and Charlemagne was pictured as wending 
his way to the Orient on a double purpose — to show his piety in 
the Holy City, and to test the truth of his wife's ill-advised 
assertion that Hugo, Emperor of Constantinople, was handsomer 
than he. The "gabs" that he and his peers make in Hugo's 



ROMANCE 153 



hall, which, being overheard by a spy, they are obliged to perform, 
are such as the ancestors of the Normans, and they themselves 
no doubt, indulged in ; and they were familiar with tales of Other- 
world journeys current in Brittany. It was an inspiration to weld 
these elements together with an account of the traditional visit 
of Charlemagne to Jerusalem ; for the French poem as it stands 
is remarkable to a high degree. It was a tale current among the 
Anglo-Normans, and relished by them. The unique manuscript 
of it was written in England in the thirteenth century by an 
Englishman who, it is clear, had inadequate mastery of French. 

This significant introduction of alien material into the frame- 
work of Carlovingian romance, by which it was enlarged and 
enriched, is exhibited curiously in a very late Scottish poem, 
Ralph Collier, which is regularly separated from the rest of the 
English Charlemagne romances, and lauded as the most original 
of all. Its originality, however, does not consist, as many seem 
to think, in the author's invention, but simply in the adaption of 
long-existing material, of a sort particularly favoured in England, 
to make it fit Charlemagne rather than an English monarch. It 
recounts the experience of a king in chance association with a 
low-born subject, a theme which occurs in several rhymed tales, 
of which the best known are King Edward III and the Tamier 
of Tamworth, and King Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield. 
Like the Pilgrimage, it too evinces rough humour and middle- 
class sentiment. 

But these, though in some respects the most interesting, were 
not the only poems dealing with the matter of France that were 
current in England. From the fourteenth century, or the begin- 
ning of the fifteenth, date half-a-dozen metrical romances, none of 
which, however, require more than a cursory examination here. 
The set may be roughly divided into two cycles, with Otuel (Otinel) 
and Ferumbras (Fierabras) as titular personages. The former is 
made up of several poems, one of which (Otuel) is preserved in 
the Auchinleck MS. The same material was treated in a poem 
entitled Duke Roland and Sir Ottuell of Spain, and in another 



154 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

version now lost except in a summary made by Ellis. Of the 
two extant versions, Otuel shows the freer treatment. The author 
emphasised the warlike and neglected the romantic elements of 
his original, the French Otinel, a chanson de geste of the end of 
the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. Otuel 
is a Saracen knight who fights in single combat with Roland. 
During the combat a dove descends from heaven upon him, and 
he declares himself ready to accept Christianity. He marries 
Belesant, the king's daughter, and fights on the side of the 
Christians against the heathen in Lombardy. 

This appears to have been only part of a lost cyclic poem, 
to which the name Charlemagne and Roland has been given. 
Other portions are preserved in the English Roland and Vernagu 
and The Siege of Milan. It recounted the deeds of Charlemagne 
during a journey to Constantinople, and a' subsequent campaign 
in Spain against the Saracens, which was concluded by a mighty 
duel between Roland and Vernagu, a black giant forty feet high, 
champion of the Sultan of Babylon. This duel lasted two days. 
It is marked by the picturesque incident that once when the 
giant, being very tired, is allowed by Roland a period for sleep, 
and still rests uneasily, his generous opponent places a stone 
under his head to ease his discomfort. Finally, receiving divine 
aid, Roland is victorious, and presents Vernagu's head to the 
king. The Siege of Milan narrates- how, after certain rebuffs, 
the French army takes Milan. Archbishop Turpin is the 
central figure, and to him is due the honour of the victory. The 
Fillingham MS., which Ellis summarised, related in some 11,000 
lines the whole history of Charlemagne from the beginning of 
the conquest of Spain to the disaster at Ronceval, the defeat 
of the Saracens, and the punishment of Ganelon. 

To the Ferumbras cycle belong the two English poems of 
The Sowdone (Sullan) of Babylon and Sir Ferumbras. The 
former tells how the Saracens entered Rome and carried off the 
holy relics ; the latter how these were recovered by Charlemagne 
in an expedition to Spain. The most interesting feature of Sir 



ROMANCE 155 



Ferumbras is the fight of Oliver with the huge heathen Ferumbras, 
who boastfully challenges the hero, but after a terrible struggle 
is overcome and consents to be baptized. His sister (Floripas), 
being in love with Guy of Burgundy, one of the French knights, 
gives aid to the Christians, which enables them to recover the 
relics. Her father Balan is put to death because he will not be 
baptized. In France Fierabras was one of the most popular of 
the late chansons de geste. That it was popular also in England 
is clear from the striking passage in Barbour's Bruce, where the 
hero is represented as reciting the romance to his followers at 
the difficult passage of Loch Lomond, to reinvigorate their 
courage. 

In the romances we have just examined are extant about 
16,000 lines of English verse written approximately in the age of 
Chaucer; and this is but a small fraction of what formerly 
existed. No poem is preserved in more than a single copy. All 
are more or less free translations from the French (Anglo- 
Norman?), but the exact originals are not known. Had we 
no single one of these English romances, we should still be able 
to assert with confidence knowledge of Carlovingian tradition 
on the part of Chaucer's contemporaries, if only from the refer- 
ences to Charlemagne in literature, his celebration as one of the 
Nine Worthies, and the numerous pieces of tapestry com- 
memorating his exploits. But his fame was most surely per- 
petuated in England by the late redactions of his history now 
to be examined. 

Not long after the printing-press was established in London, 
Caxton presented his English public with " reductions " of two 
long prose romances of this cycle. The first dealt with " the 
right puyssant, vertuous and noble " King Charles the Great, and 
was based on a late transformation of Fierabras into which much 
new material had been introduced. " The most part of this 
book," Caxton observes, " is made to thonour of Frenssh men," 
but also, he adds, " for prouffyte of every man," inasmuch as 
"the werkes of the anncient and old peple ben for to gyve to 



156 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

us ensample to lyve in good and vertuous operacions digne 
and worthy of helth in folowyng the good and eschewying 
the evyl." "■ 

Charles the Great appeared in 1485. Five years later, Caxton 
turned into English with pious fidelity the romance of Renaud de 
Montauban, or, as the printer entitled it, " the right pleasant and 
goodly historie of the Four Sons of Aymon." Here we have 
recorded the wars of Charlemagne with rebellious vassals. Our 
sympathy is enlisted in the cause of the latter because the king is 
pictured as cruel and tyrannical, a "'doting old man," whose 
conduct is reprehensible at every turn. Yet we appreciate as 
admirable the allegiance of his older barons, who, come what 
will, are always true to their feudal vows. The noble Aymon 
and his son Renaud are the embodiment of honour, and scorn 
advantage gained by deceit. The interest of the brothers' 
achievements is greatly enhanced by the performances of the 
famous steed Bayard, who almost as much as Renaud is the hero 
of the tale. According to popular tradition, he may still be heard 
to neigh in the forest of the Ardennes. Even so Achilles, 
Cuchulinn, Sigurth, Launfal, Beves, and others were helped and 
comforted by their devoted steeds. This work enjoyed great 
popularity, and is frequently mentioned, not always with approval. 
In 1598, for example, Francis Meres included it in a list of works 
" hurtful to youth." 

There are in French no less than eighteen chansons on the 
wars of Charlemagne against his vassals, in which he is usually 
exhibited as a weak old fool whom his barons - despise. This 
debasing of the king's character was evidently due to the ever- 
increasing feeling of independence of contemporary French 
barons towards their suzerains, which finally caused the disin- 
tegration of feudalism. Another circumstance that led to the 
remodelling of epic tradition was the popularity of Arthurian 
romance. Its influence brought about the infusion of a new 
spirit and tone. All was no longer war and struggle. Women 
became more and more conspicuous. Love-making and magic 



ROMANCE 157 



appeared everywhere. New heroes vied with old in deeds of 
chivalry. 

The new romantic, rather than the old belligerent, spirit per- 
vades The Book of Duke Huou de Bordeaux^ which was printed 
in 1534 by Wynkyn de Worde, not like his predecessor Caxton 
in a crude translation of his own, but as " done into English by 
Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners," the translator of Froissart. 
Here at last we have an English Charlemagne romance admirable 
in style and important in influence. Lord Berners wrote very 
dignified prose, and his Huon was utilised by Spenser in the 
Faerie Queene, by Shakspere in A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 
and by Keats in Endymion. Huon is most interesting as a hero 
when his career resembles that of his Arthurian prototypes. 
Oberon, his constant helper, is a genuine fairy king, who aids his 
favourite with the unfaltering devotion and the unlimited resources 
characteristic of his class. The fairy conceptions of the romance 
appear much altered in Shakspere's play : Oberon seems of a 
different race from Robin Goodfellow and Puck. But in reality 
all may have a basis in Celtic mythology diversely developed. 
If Oberon is a creature of elaborate romances, the others are the 
offspring of folk-tales of obscure origin. Shakspere was suc- 
cessful in merging the two products of the people's thought. He 
borrowed from Huon ; but, what is more important, he caught the 
spirit of fairy tradition which had circulated in Britain for long 
ages before. 

Chaucer tells us that in Arthur's time England was " fulfilled of 
fayerye," and the statement was in a way true of his own age. 
Literature in England dealing with this theme has always been 
stimulated and aided by conceptions living among the people, 
vitalised as nowhere else by the electric current of sympathetic 
oelief. There is, indeed, no literature that compares with the 
Ejnglish in the prominence of fairy lore as a subject of inspiration. 
E^ven now Celtic poets lead us back to " shadowy waters " and bid 
us linger there in reverie — where the air " nimbly and sweetly " 
d6th commend itself unto our gentle senses. We follow gladly ; 



158 THE MATTER OF FRANCE chap. 

for the domain of fairyland is as enchanting to-day as it has ever 
been, and we have not broken with the traditions of our race. 

That there never arose in England a truly national cycle of 
poems, like those that form the early epic of Charlemagne, is 
due no doubt to the vicissitudes of politics in the island. 
National enthusiasm was ever ready to voice itself in songs of 
war. Paeans of rejoicing were sung by Englishmen after victory ; 
the glory of praise rewarded every popular hero who fought 
for the land. But there was no great centre to group them 
about; a genuine national epic it was impossible to develop in 
early England during the epic age because of the heterogeneous 
traditions that then conflicted with one another. The nearest 
approach, of course, is the story of Arthur. A brilliant effort 
was made and earnestly prosecuted to uplift him as the national 
hero. But the result fell far short of the aim. Arthurian 
romance is a superb product, yet in no wise the embodiment 
of English nationality. Arthur's fame as an imperial monarch 
rested too obviously on fiction to remain in discriminating times 
a basis of national boast. Nevertheless, throughout the Middle 
Ages it was earnestly exalted, and served in no small degree to 
unite in a common sentiment the different elements then blending 
to form the English people. 

If we contrast the cycle of Arthur with that of Charlemagne, 
we see at once the basis for their different character : the founda- 
tions are unlike. The matter of Britain was in its beginning 
largely myth and fable ; that of France was idealised fact. No 
one would dream of turning to an Arthurian poem for facts of 
history ; the historical basis of the epic of Charlemagne is r 
subject of constant study. When men read the stories of Kin a 
Arthur and his knights they felt the glamour of mystery; the^ 
were bespelled by unreality, by visions. The Carlovingian struggle 3 ' 
on the contrary, stirred them to action, made them grasp th lr 
swords and prepare for battle. The popularity and influei" e 
of the Prankish epic in early times was enormous, not onb Jn 
France, but abroad in nearly every country of Europe, abovf a " 



ROMANCE 1 59 



in Italy. But its power has steadily waned. Descriptions of 
battles and disputes, endlessly strung out and necessarily much 
of a kind, could not hold their own in rivalry with the Celtic 
narratives of love and adventure, infinite in variety and ever 
captivating by suggestion. We are to-day profoundly stirred by 
the stories of King Arthur. Poets, artists, musicians find in 
them an inspiration to their best efforts. They are ever new. 
But Charlemagne we have outgrown, and of all his once illustrious 
paladins hardly one is popularly known among us. 

The Matter of Britain 
Origin and Development 

Arthur is a threefold creation. In the upbuilding of this 
marvellous figure, materials have been drawn from three sources. 
Around the monument of actual fact, above the grave of a valiant 
leader of the Britons, the brier of myth and the rose of romance 
have woven themselves together in enduring embrace. There 
was, all now agree, an historical Arthur, who occupied a con- 
spicuous place in the written and unwritten annals of the early 
Welsh. In the course of time this famous hero of a rapidly 
receding past came to be associated with the ancients of his 
race and took on mythological attributes. Little by little he 
became the centre round which saga and sentiment revolved, 
and at last, after some seven centuries of changing fortunes, he 
appeared with his present romantic personality, as noble as 
unique, as brilliant as supreme. 

How did this come about ? Who was the historical Arthur ? 
Why was he called to association with the Celtic gods ? What 
occasioned his idealisation by his own and other races ? When 
and where was he transformed into a picturesque king, and given 
a worthy following of noble knights? These are the questions 
that will occupy our attention in the present section. We must 
first strive to get a clear idea of Arthur as he appears in the early 
chronicles ; we shall then endeavour to see him with the eyes of 



160 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chap. 

the ancient Welsh ; finally, we shall try to picture him seated 
on the glittering throne provided for him by Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth and the French poets, in the midst of his retainers, at a 
splendid court. 

We have no certain mention of Arthur's name in any his- 
torical document that goes back in its present form to a period 
earlier than the beginning of the ninth century ; but we can 
safely assert that it occurred in a redaction of that document which 
was put into shape about a century and a half earlier ; and there 
is every reason to believe that some qf his achievements are 
referred to in a history which was almost contemporary with the 
events of his life. 

Arthur is first mentioned by name in the Historia Britonum 
of an author called Nennius. This little work has of late been 
the subject of minute investigation by distinguished scholars, and 
has occasioned much dispute. Into the details of this discussion 
we need not here enter. Suffice it to state briefly a few facts 
regarding it which seem fairly well established. The Historia 
is not an original work by a single author, but rather a summary 
of such information on early British history as was accessible 
to a learned man about the year 800. It had been gradually 
brought together. From a Latin life of St. Germanus one Run 
map Urbgen, who lived until 627, made excerpts, which an 
historiographer in the year 679 transformed into a British history, 
with Vortigern as the central figure, to which he prefixed an 
introduction. This work appears to have been, on the whole, 
well constructed and attractive. Its unity, however, was soon 
disturbed by interpolations, and thus the ground was prepared 
for the further amplification by Nennius, finally shaped by him, 
it seems, about 826. 

The statements regarding Arthur in Nennius are confirmed 
by the evidence of the saintly historian Gildas, Arthur's con- 
temporary. His chief work, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, 
is a violent denunciation of the people of his time, written 
evidently by an ardent ecclesiastic proud of his birthright as a 



ROMANCE 161 



Roman citizen. Gildas relates that after the death of Ambrosius 
Aurelianus there followed a time of ceaseless warring with the 
Saxon invaders, in which "nunc cives, nunc hostes vincebant." 
This period of varying success was finally ended by a brilliant 
victory at Mount Badon, when the Saxons received such a 
crushing defeat that for nearly half a century the British enjoyed 
comparative peace. Now Nennius tells us that after the time of 
Ambrosius, Arthur fought against the Saxons in twelve battles, 
the last of which was the famous Mount Badon. And there 
can be little if any doubt that Gildas and Nennius here record 
the same events, and that Arthur was that triumphant leader of 
the Britons who vanquished the foreign hosts. 

The position the historical Arthur occupied is clearly defined 
by Nennius in these words : " pugnabat cum regibus Brittonum, 
sed ipse dux erat bellorum." Arthur was a " dux bellorum " of 
the Britons ; and thus appears to have occupied a position that 
existed before the withdrawal of the Roman troops, and was 
later continued as part of the organisation necessary to ensure 
the country's defences. When, under Constantine in 407, 
the Romans definitely withdrew from Britain, utter chaos did 
not ensue. There was a Roman party in the land, and the 
control was left in their hands. They simply maintained the 
organisation elaborated under the Roman rule. During the fifth 
century the British were hard pressed by the Saxon invaders, 
against whom they waged constant warfare; but under their 
leader Arthur, who seems, however, to have been only a mili- 
tary commander (gwledig), they gained, not far from the year 500, 
after a series of successes, a glorious victory at Mount Badon. 
This event was followed by a half-century of peace, during which 
Arthur's heroism was no doubt more and more exalted. In the 
second half of the sixth century, when the Britons again met 
with reverses, they must have reverenced as never before the 
memory of the brave leader who had previously brought them 
success. Arthur became a name to conjure with. And very 
soon, like a powerful magnet, it drew to itself whatever floating 

M 



162 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chat. 

materials of myth, legend, and saga were not otherwise indis- 
solubly connected. 

The paragraph about Arthur in the Historia Britoniun of the 
early ninth century was, it is now believed by scholars, already in 
the version of the year 679, from which it was taken up into 
the Nennius redaction. But there can be no doubt that even in 
the seventh century this was by no means all that was to be said 
of him ; for he meanwhile had become the hero of mythological 
tales. Whether this was occasioned by the possible circumstance 
that his name was so similar to that of a Welsh deity that identi- 
fication or confusion was easy, or, more probably, by the fact that 
popular heroes have, since the beginning of the world, invariably 
been glorified by their devotees, and made to shine with bor- 
rowed splendour, it is impossible to say. It is clear, at all events, 
that much of what Welsh tradition says of Arthur is the detritus 
of early myth. " The very first thing that strikes one in reading 
the Mabinogion" as Matthew Arnold points out in his essay On 
the Study of Celtic Literature, "is how evidently the mediaeval 
story-teller is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully 
possess the secret ; he is like a peasant building his hut on the 
site of Halicarnassus or Ephesus ; he builds, but what he builds 
is full of materials of which he knows not the history, or knows 
by a glimmering tradition merely ;— stones ' not of this building,' 
but of an older architecture, greater, cunninger, more majestical." 

All attempts to reconstruct the mythological Arthur, to show 
him to be truly a member of the Welsh pantheon, have been 
received with scepticism ; for it does not follow that attributes 
or adventures ascribed to him in tradition or romance of late 
date are anything more than features of the ancient mythology 
of the British transferred from the personages with whom they 
were originally connected to him who in the course of time had 
become the supreme hero of the Welsh. After the old religion 
had disappeared, the' primitive stories of the gods were repeated 
over and over again, but they were no longer viewed in the same 
light as in heathen times. We may feel certain that the Welsh 



ROMANCE 163 



who transferred myths to Arthur were but vaguely, if at all, 
conscious of their early significance. Even as the gods were 
treated euhemeristically, as men and heroes, so the stories told 
about them could be rationalised and transferred to real warriors. 
Arthur's preeminent position as the saviour of his people in the 
time of sore need, their mainstay during their last period of pros- 
perity and independence, naturally led to his being crowned with 
laurels of grateful memory, and forgotten deities were stripped of 
their possessions to contribute to his glory. Every effort was 
made to enhance his reputation for valorous achievement. In 
the popular imagination he became the leader of a great host of 
picked followers, brought together from history and tradition 
regardless of their age and environment. 

The gathering that assembled about Arthur in his hall 
Ehangwen was totally different from that which was wont to 
hold its revelry in Caerleon or Camelot. A rough, uncouth set 
were the Welsh band. Their accomplishments were numerous 
and varied, but not of the sort that captivate the modern mind. 
We hear no more of Sol than that he was able to hold himself on 
one foot the whole day, and we wonder what advantage came to 
Arthur from such a follower. What did it profit him that 
Ychdryt Varyvdraws was able to project his bristling red beard 
over the forty-eight rafters of his hall ? Surely no pleasure could 
be had from association with Gwevyl, son of Gwestat, who when 
he was sad let one of his lips fall below his waist, while the other 
he put as a hood over his head. And when we read of Gwallgoyc 
that though there were a hundred houses in the town where he 
lived, if he happened to lack anything, he did not let sleep close 
the eyes of a single person while he was there, we come to the 
conclusion that he must have been an unwelcome guest. If 
Arthur had many such in his train, he was doubtless as much 
feared wherever he went as the notorious bearsarks of Scandi- 
navian heathendom. 

Some of his followers, however, were doubtless extremely 
useful. He had an "interpreter to whom all tongues were known, 



164 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chap. 

and who could speak with birds and animals. He had a guide 
who served as well in a country he had not seen as in his own. 
He had a magician who, in case he was in a heathen country, 
could spread enchantment round about so that he and his com- 
panions were not seen by any one, though they saw all. There 
was another of his men, Clust the son of Clustveinad, who would 
certainly have made a good watchman ; for, when buried seven 
cubits beneath the earth, he could hear the ant fifty miles off rise 
from its nest in the morning. Guinevere had two attendants 
whose feet, we are told, were as swift as their thoughts when 
bearing a message. But her husband's envoy was of a more 
picturesque character : "When he intended to go on a message 
for his lord, he never sought to find a path, but, knowing whither 
he was to go, if his way lay through a wood he went along the 
tops of the trees. During his whole life, a blade of reed grass 
bent not beneath his feet, much less did one ever break, so 
lightly did he tread." Arthur had one person specially trained 
as a sort of battering-ram. His mission was to clear aside all 
obstacles that impeded the King's progress : " The soles of his 
feet emitted sparks of fire when they struck upon things hard, 
like the heated mass when drawn out of a forge." When Arthur 
and his hosts came before a torrent, they would seek a narrow 
place and then summon Osla Gyllellvawr, who had a short broad 
dagger, which, when laid across the water, formed a bridge 
sufficient for the armies of the three Islands of Britain, and of 
the three Islands adjacent, with their spoil. Assuredly, it was 
no ordinary body of men that marched with Arthur in ancient 
Wales. 

Such were those, according to the tale of Kulhwych and 
Okben, who in early times gathered about Arthur's board. The 
celebrated Round Table is a primitive Welsh tradition, based 
on customs which have been traced back to the pan-Celtic age. 
To Layamon we are indebted for preserving the story of its 
foundation, the explanation of its nature. It was built, we learn, 
to prevent quarrels about precedence, so constructed that each, 



ROMANCE -165 



having as good a place as his neighbour, had no occasion for 
jealous strife. It could seat sixteen hundred men, if necessary, 
and yet was so arranged that it could be folded up and carried 
easily on a journey. In this it resembled Odin's ship Skith- 
blathnir, which could hold all who desired to get aboard, and 
yet when not needed would fold up like a cloth and fit into its 
owner's wallet. The Round Table doubtless had the magic 
property of providing unlimited supplies of food for all who sat 
about it, even as the Holy Grail satisfied all who were honoured 
by its sight. 

Our conception of Arthur, however, is very far from that 
conveyed by early historical records, far from the primitive Welsh 
conception of him as superhuman and mysterious. Arthur is to 
us a king, a glorious monarch, surrounded by a group of brilliant 
knights. How did the world come so to regard him ? Surely 
not because there was anything to suggest it in Welsh traditional 
tales, Arthur must needs have a well-accredited place in history 
before he could conquer the world. He had to be pictured 
as the beau ideal of noble chivalry before he could assume 
sway over the lords of feudal France. And this was brought 
about by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The world was waiting for an 
embodiment of chivalric ideals whom men might glorify by 
imitation. The heroes of antiquity were too much the product 
of unlike conditions. Charlemagne was too stern and real, too 
ascetic and devout. Arthur, on the contrary, exactly suited the 
taste of the time. He inhabited a distant, unknown land, where 
the imagination could roam undisturbed. A mist of marvel 
enshrouded him and his mighty men of valour. Pious enough 
to satisfy the requirements of the Church, he was at the same time 
sufficiently worldly to captivate the fancy of secular knights, and 
by his gallantry able to excite the emotions of the romantically 
disposed ladies who were then beginning to control the destinies 
of men of arms. Without Geoffrey's book Arthur would not so 
widely have won his way into the refined circles of England and 
France. It was he who made possible his triumphant career. 



166 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chap. 

In Geoffrey's Historia, it is important to observe, we have the 
first presentation of our hero-king as a full-orbed personality with 
a well-rounded career. In his new picture of Arthur we have 
all the elements of mediaeval romance. Arthur is, we see, the - 
combination of the varying ideals of the people as embodied in 
many types. He now appears as a saga-hero, a national leader, a 
defender of the faith, a world-conquerer, a romantic adventurer, a 
mythical warrior, an immortal king. 

Fundamentally, Geoffrey's account is based on Nennius. 
Despite the very great alterations it has undergone, the figure 
of Arthur still appears in much the same light as before. He is 
still celebrated as a chieftain who vanquishes the Saxon invaders 
of his country. He is preeminently a brave and victorious 
warrior, the champion of a nation's liberty. But he is now far 
more than this. To satisfy the natural demands of the Normans 
for more information regarding so exalted a personage, Geoffrey 
fashioned for him a suitable career. His parentage and youth 
had, of course, to be remarkable, and the historian was impelled 
to take hints ready at hand : Arthur's birth and boyhood are like 
those of the typical saga -hero. Like Finn and Mongan and 
Cormac, and many others, he is represented as begotten out of 
wedlock, the child of love. His father is a king, who, conceiving 
a passion for the beautiful young wife of a jealous old duke, one 
of his counsellors, swears he shall die if his longings are not 
fulfilled, and manages by deceit, with the connivance of a 
magician skilled in shape- shifting, to satisfy his desires. The 
boy thus begotten is destined to have a glorious career. He 
early shows his prowess. His father being treacherously slain, he 
begins to reign at fifteen years. He is an ideal of beauty, courage, 
and generosity. Immediately he is surrounded by a valiant 
following. Soldiers flock to him from all quarters. He forms a 
sort of feudal comitatus, and " the better to keep up his bounty, 
he resolves to make use of his courage, and to fall upon the 
Saxons, that he may enrich his followers with their wealth." 
A splendid light beats upon this royal youth from the very 



ROMANCE 167 



beginning. Witness, for example, Geoffrey's description of his 
conduct in the battle of Mount Badon, in which the Saxons were 
brilliantly overcome and the cause of God abundantly vindicated. 
As Wordsworth puts it : 

Amazement runs before the towering casque 
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field 
The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield. 

The twelve battles recorded by Nennius Geoffrey reduces in 
number, makes them occur in a single campaign, and greatly 
amplifies his original by the introduction of circumstantial story, 
drawn unquestionably in part from popular tradition otherwise 
connected. Nevertheless, in this section of his narrative he 
clearly follows the suggestions of the earlier chronicle. Through- 
out he pictures Arthur as a furious fighter and a relentless 
slayer of his foes. 

Geoffrey's narrative of Arthur's life does not end, as so fre- 
quently with popular heroes, with the description of his enfances. 
The Saxon wars over, he enters at once upon a new career 
as world -conqueror. He makes and unmakes nations. After 
defeating the Picts and Scots, he conquers all Ireland, subdues 
Iceland, and accepts tributes from the kings of Gothland and 
the Orkneys. This satisfies his warlike propensities for a space 
of twelve years. But at last, "hearing with delight how he 
has become a terror to the kings of other countries, he forms 
a design for the conquest of all Europe." First he subdues 
Norway and Denmark; then he spends nine years in Gaul, 
during which time the whole country is reduced to his dominion; 
and later he holds court at Paris itself. After having dis- 
tributed the chief provinces of his new realm to various chiefs 
in his service, he finally returns to Britain, whereupon ensues 
a period of great celebrations and brilliant fetes. There is, 
however, Arthur recognises, danger of degeneration in times 
of peace ; and so, when he receives the demand for tribute 
from the Roman procurator Lucius Tiberius, he determines, on 



168 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN . chap. 

the advice of his counsellors, to begin warfare anew. Not 
only does he repudiate Lucius' demand, he even claims that 
tribute is justly due to him from Rome, inasmuch as his pre- 
decessors and kinsmen, Belinus and Constantine, both had 
gained that imperial throne. Provided with an enormous 
army ("all together made up 183,200, besides foot which did 
not easily fall under number"!), the king commits to his 
nephew Modred the government of Britain, and crossing the 
Channel, prosecutes a successful war on the Continent. AVhen, 
however, he is about to pass the Alps, he has news brought 
him that Modred, "by tyrannical and treasonable practices, has 
set the crown upon his own head ; and that Queen Quanhumara, 
in violation of her first marriage, has wickedly married him." 
He therefore desists from his enterprise against Rome, and 
returns with speed to Britain, where he encounters Modred 
in a bloody battle, in which, however, he gains the victory. 
After being twice routed, Modred is killed. But this last 
struggle was so fierce that it " proved fatal to almost all the 
commanders and their forces . . . and even the renowned King 
Arthur himself was mortally wounded, and being carried thence 
to the Isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds, he gave up 
the crown of Britain to his kinsman Constantine, the son of 
Cador, Duke of Cornwall, in the five hundred and second year 
of Our Lord's incarnation." 

This conclusion takes us at once into the realm of myth. 
The Isle of Avalon, whither Arthur is transported to be healed 
of his wounds, is the Celtic Otherworld of unending delight. 
From it, according to British fable current in Geoffrey's time, 
Arthur was destined to return to cast off the yoke of the 
oppressor from his distressed land. The story of the loss of 
Guinevere, and the struggle to recover her, is also without 
doubt the relic of an ancient myth. Thus, whatever myth- 
ological stories may be at the bottom of statements in the 
history are rationalised so as to appear as real occurrences. We 
must not, however, overlook the fact that Arthur wields at Mount 



ROMANCE 169 



Badon a magic sword Caliburn (Excalibur), " forged in the Isle 
of Avalon," a spear Ron, and a shield Priwen. Welsh tradition 
supplied him also with a magic dagger, and ship, and a mantle 
that made the wearer invisible. For some reason best known 
to himself, Geoffrey refrained from mentioning the Round 
Table, also a magic property; but Wace soon after supplied 
that omission. In possessing such equipment, Arthur partakes 
of the nature of a mythological hero. He is no longer simply 
an historical dux bellorum, a Cormac, or an Alexander : he is 
now similar in nature to the Irish Cuchulinn, a Welsh Odin, a 
Celtic Mercury. 

Allied to this conception is that of Arthur as an adventurous 
knight. He not only leads armies, he engages in single hand- 
to-hand combats with monsters to free endangered ladies. His 
fight with the giant of Mont St. Michel reads like the summary 
of a roman d'aventure, or like an incident of an episodic 
romance, which might have a companion in his combat with 
the giant Ritho, who challenged him to fight on Mount Aravius. 

This giant had made himself furs of the beards of kings he had killed, 
and had sent word to Arthur carefully to cut off his beard and send it to 
him; and then, out of respect to his preeminence over other kings, his 
beard should have the honour of the principal place. But if he refused 
to do it, he challenged him to a duel, with this offer, that the conqueror 
should have the furs, and also the beard of the vanquished for a trophy 
of his victory. In this conflict, therefore, Arthur proved victorious, and 
took the beard and spoils of the giant. 

Given, indeed, a youthful hero like Arthur in Geoffrey's 
description, and such achievements as the fight with Ritho, the 
rescue of Helena, and the winning of a kingdom by single 
combat with the gigantic Flollo, followed by a coronation scene, 
a marriage ceremony, a banquet, and a tourney, like those so 
amazingly pictured by the historian, and we have all the 
materials necessary for a biographical romance of the ordinary 
type. 

In Arthur's time, says Geoffrey, 



170 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chap 

Britain had arrived at such a pitch of grandeur, that in abundance 
of riches, luxury of ornaments, and politeness of inhabitants, it far surpassed 
all other kingdoms. The knights in it that were famous for feats of 
chivalry wore their clothes and arms all of the same colour and fashion ; 
and the women also, no less celebrated for their wit, wore all the same 
kind of apparel, and esteemed none worthy of their love but such as had 
given a proof of their valour in three several battles. Thus was the valour 
of the men an encouragement to the women's chastity, and the love of the 
women a spur to the soldiers' bravery. 

It is obvious that such a presentment as this was only 
possible in the time of the Norman kings. Never before had 
anything of the kind been known in England. We have here 
full-blown chivalry; the sendee des dames is the stimulus of 
warfare; knights strive to win honour in tourneys that they 
may gain the love of the weaker but dominant sex. In thus 
picturing the court of King Arthur as one of elaborate refine- 
ment, Geoffrey took as a model that of the Conqueror and his 
successors. He imitated, in a word, as was most natural, the 
court that was the centre of his own considerations. Arthur's 
wars are conducted like those of the Anglo-Norman kings; 
his doings in peace are fashioned on theirs. 

According to the manner of his time, Geoffrey gave free 
rein to his fancy, and fabricated with an easy conscience what 
he himself knew full well was an entirely new narrative of the 
deeds of his hero, embodying, to be sure, much that was 
old and authentic, much that was based on genuine popular 
tradition, but nevertheless establishing an entirely different 
impression of Arthur 'from any that had prevailed before. 
Because of his work there was a great gulf for ever fixed 
between our Arthur and the hero whom Nennius lauds and 
the Mabinogion depict. Not that the Historia is the chief 
source of all the legends that cluster about the name of Arthur. 
Not that the romancers who afterwards narrated the deeds 
of his fellows found his history worthy of repetition. Far from 
it. The early romancers did not perpetuate Geoffrey's record 
of this wonderful world -figure by whose startling achievements 



ROMANCE 



they were dazzled and bewildered. Arthur's reputation as an 
invincible monarch they readily accepted. But most of the 
tales of his personal valour they thought best to ignore as 
inconsistent with the new position he had been given. If 
Geoffrey thus dealt a death-blow to the personal saga of the 
Welsh warrior, he made possible a new Arthur; he established 
him for ever as an illustrious monarch with a brilliant court ; he 
called into literary being the tales of the brave British and 
Armoric knights with whom (in Milton's phrase) he was " begirt." 
The question now arises : If Geoffrey is not the source of 
the material embodied in the early Arthurian romances, whence 
did it come ? The answer is not yet final. But that there 
was a vast deal of romantic tradition connected with Arthur 
before Geoffrey's time is now generally conceded. Not to 
mention the very plain evidence of Nennius and Geoffrey's 
own narrative, we have the testimony of William of Malmesbury, 
Giraldus, Wace, and many others on this point, though, even 
without their explicit statements that the deeds of Arthur and 
his knights were recounted in extravagant fable, we should 
regard such a situation as inevitable on the basis of antecedent 
probability. An examination of the proper names in mediaeval 
Italian documents has made it certain that Arthurian stories 
were widely current in Italy in the eleventh and later centuries ; 
otherwise so many historical persons could not then have borne 
Arthurian names. And how else could it have come about 
that an episode in an Arthurian story should be carved on the 
Cathedral of Modena as early as the beginning of the twelfth 
century? This extraordinary familiarity with the matter of 
Britain at so early a period in Italy was probably due chiefly 
to the influence of the French, among whom Arthur had 
"doubtless long been celebrated in popular tales. From an 
account of an expedition made in 1113 by certain monks of 
Laon in Brittany to Cornwall, we not only learn that a Cornish 
cripple was ready to fight in a holy sanctuary for his belief that 
Arthur still lived, and are informed that there were then in 



172 THE MATTER OF BRITAIN chap. 

Cornwall, as there now are in all quarters in Britain, places that 
bore his name, but we discover also that the French and Bretons 
of the Continent had previously been accustomed to dispute 
concerning the great king. 

The Celtic stories circulating on the Continent in the twelfth 
century were transmitted to the French in large measure no doubt 
by the Armorican Bretons. When in the fifth and sixth centuries 
they emigrated from South Wales and Cornwall, they took with 
them growing traditions, which soon entered upon an era of 
altered development. The Armoricans did not live by them- 
selves or unto themselves. There is no sufficient reason to 
believe that they ever ceased to have intercourse with their kin 
at home ; they early had much to do with the Franks ; from the 
tenth century on they were in close intimacy with the Normans. 
Not only did Norman and Breton princes marry and give in 
marriage among themselves — their troops also fought side by side 
in the same battles. William the Conqueror found his Breton 
auxiliaries under Alan Fergant an invaluable aid, and they 
received their full share of lands and possessions in England 
after the Conquest. Stories were easily rendered accessible to 
the French through the medium of French-speaking Bretons, 
or Breton-speaking Normans. From the bilingual zone of their 
borderland travelled minstrels and story-tellers who were able to 
make themselves intelligible in either tongue. They were welcomed 
everywhere, at the hut of the peasant as 'well as in the lordly hall, 
and spread abroad among high and low knowledge of the glorious 
king of their motherland, for whose return they still hoped. 

But it is unreasonable to maintain, as some do, that meanwhile 
the insular Celts had either forgotten Arthur or ceased to talk 
about him. Their minstrels too, we may be sure, sang of him 
and his might, even to their hereditary foes ; for national pre- 
judices do not influence much the actions of vagabond individuals 
who have their own ends to farther, and who speedily grow 
cosmopolitan when a good living is thus assured .them. Whether 
the Saxons had heard many Arthurian stories from the people 



ROMANCE 207 



tent where the queen sits weeping bitterly. At the request of the knight he 
plays the lay of Dido to banish the lady's sorrow. He plays so sweetly that 
the notes enter Ysolt's heart, and her captor too listens eagerly. The water 
rises, but they heed not — so insinuating are the sounds. Finally, the tide 
runs so strong that they can only reach the boat on horseback, and Ysolt 
insists on being borne by the minstrel. Once in Tristram's arms she is, of 
course, free, and the traitorous Irish knight must return home, ashamed and 
sorrowful. 

The second tale is permeated with the mysterious magic of 
the Otherworld. It tells how Tristram won from Duke Gilan of 
Wales his little dog Petit-Criu, "a fairy dog, that had been sent 
to the Duke from the land of Avalon, as love-token, by a fay." 

" No tongue could tell the marvel of it ; 'twas of such wondrous fashion 
that no man might say of what colour it was. If one looked on the breast 
and saw nought else, one had said 'twas white as snow, yet its thighs were 
greener than clover, and its sides, one red as scarlet, the other more yellow 
than saffron. Its underparts were even as azure, while above 'twas mingled 
so that no one corour might be distinguished; 'twas neither green nor red, 
white nor black, yellow nor blue, and yet was there somewhat of all these 
therein ; 'twas a fair purple brown. And if one saw this strange creature of 
Avalon against the lie of the hair there would be no man wise enough to tell 
its colour, so manifold and so changing were its hues. 

"Around its neck was a golden chain, and therefrom hung a bell, which 
rang so sweet and clear that when it began to chime Tristram forgot his 
sadness and his sorrow, and the longing for Isolt that lay heavy on his heart. 
So sweet was the tone of the bell that no man heard it but he straightway 
forgot all that aforetime had troubled him. . . . 

"Tristram stretched forth his hand and stroked the dog, and it seemed to 
him that he handled the softest silk, so fine and so smooth was the hair to his 
touch. And the dog neither growled nor barked nor showed any sign of 
ill-temper, however one might play with it ; nor, as the tale goes, was it ever 
seen to eat or drink. 

"When the dog was borne away, Tristram's sorrow fell upon him as heavy 
as before, and to it was added the thought how he might by any means win 
Petit-Criu, the fairy dog, for his lady the queen, that thereby her sorrow and 
her longing might be lessened. Yet he could not see how this might be 
brought about either by craft or by prayer, for he knew well that Gilan would 
not have parted with it for his life. This desire and longing lay heavy on his 
heart, but he gave no outward sign of his thought." 
. _Now the Duke was in perpetual fear of a giant magician, Argan, and he 



208 THE CYCLE OF SIR TRISTRAM chap. 

promises Tristram whatever he may ask of him, if he will rid him of his 
terrible foe. This the hero accomplishes after a fierce fight, and then 
demands the fairy dog as his reward. The Duke pleads with him to take 
anything else, but when Tristram insists, he yields. "Alas ! my lord Tristram," 
he says, "if that be indeed thy will, I will keep faith with thee and do thy 
pleasure. Neither craft nor cunning am I minded to use. Though it be 
greatly against my will, yet what thou desirest, that shall be done." 

Tristram, overjoyed, sends the precious dog, hidden cunningly in a lute, 
to the queen, explaining how he had won it, at great peril to his life, for her 
sake. At first she had it ever with her, and it brought her great comfort. 
The bell's wonderful sweet chime made her forget her grief. But when she 
bethought herself that while she thus rejoiced her lover was in sorrow, she 
upbraided herself bitterly. The bell she tore from the dog's neck, and no 
longer had it power to sooth a downcast heart. Yet Ysolt was now the 
better pleased, for she would not be comforted when Tristram was sad. 

Thomas wrote in simple, flowing, octosyllabic couplets, the 
usual metre of French romances. A much more complicated, 
and to our ears much less pleasing, metre characterises the 
Northern English poem Sir Tristram, which is based on his 
poem. This work was obviously written with hearers, not 
readers, especially in mind. It has all the marks of being pre- 
pared for recitation by a minstrel at a public gathering. 

The opening stanza, which will serve to illustrate the metre, 
gives us some would-be indication of the source of the work. 

I was a[t Erceldoun,] 
With Thomas spoke I there ; 
There heard I read in roun (private), 
Who Tristram got and bore ; 
Who was king with crown, 
And who him fostered (of) yore, 
And who was bold baron 
As their elders were. 
By yere 
Thomas tells in town 
These adventures, as they were. 

From this passage it would appear that one Thomas of 
Erceldoun was accustomed to tell in public the adventures of 
Sir Tristram, and that our author had the advantage of con- 



ROMANCE 209 



versing with him in private on the same matter. This Thomas 
had a remarkable fictitious career. He was called "Rhymer," 
and apparently justified the name. His personality is hazy; but 
there seems to be good evidence to attest his existence as an 
historical person living towards the close of the thirteenth cen- 
tury. In a very interesting ballad -romance, dating from about 
1400, he is said to have gone, like Launfal, to dwell with the 
queen of fairyland, whose favour he had won. She, however, is 
said to have conducted him after a while back to this world, and 
before leaving him here to have granted him the gift of sooth- 
saying, and told him much of future events. On this account he 
very soon was associated with Merlin, and for centuries a great 
deal of influential prophetical literature was current under his 
name. Indeed, it is said that the " Whole Prophecie " of Merlin, 
Thomas Rymour, and others, which was collected and issued as 
early as 1603, continued to be printed as a chap-book down to 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, when few farm-houses in 
Scotland were without it. There is no evidence, however, that 
this Thomas had anything to do with the composition of Sir 
Tristram. It can never be proved, of course, that he did not 
write a poem on that hero ; but it seems highly probable that he 
was connected with the particular poem before us only because 
of the identity of his name with that of the Anglo-Norman 
author of the original version, it being well understood that 
the popularity of the poem would be appreciably increased by 
reference to so distinguished an authority as the prophet of 
Erceldoun. 

Robert of Brunne, in his chronicle written c. 1340, is thought 
to bear witness to the fact that Sir Tristram was attributed to 
Thomas of Erceldoun even in his time. In an important passage, 
in which he reproaches those who used such artificial metres and 
strange phraseology that the common people could hardly under- 
stand what they meant, he says : 



I see in song, in sedgeyng tale, 
Of Erceldoun and of Kendale, 



THE CYCLE OF SIR TRISTRAM 



None them say as they them wrought, 
And in their saying it seemeth nought. 

Thereupon follows directly a plain reference to the English 
poem, which is apparently contrasted with the work of the 
original author Thomas (neither of Erceldoun nor of Kendale), 
though this is not the inference usually drawn from the passage : 

That mayst thou hear in Sir Tristrem, 

Over gests it has the (e)steem, 

Over all that is or was. 

If men it said as made Thomas ; 

But I hear it no man so say, 

That of some couplet some is away ; 

So their fair saying herebeforn, 

So their travail near forlorn. 

They say it for pride and nobley, 

That none were such as they ; 

And .all that they would overwhere, 

All that ilk will now forfare. 

They said in so quaint English, 

That many a one wots not what it is. 

The last lines may be taken to refer to the Sir Tristram we 
are discussing, which is certainly written in a very complicated 
metre, and so succinctly that it but ill reproduces the couplets 
of the earlier version. It would have required a great poet to 
move quite unhampered by the clogs of rhyme that this peculiar 
stanza imposed. Not satisfied, however, with these restrictions, 
the English writer laboured for alliterative effects. No one, then, 
will be surprised to learn that frequently he sacrificed the sense 
of the story, to say nothing of the general impression, to his 
enforced display of clever artifice. The whole story, moreover, 
he cut down so recklessly that it is at times almost unintelligible. 
Gottfried took nearly 20,000 lines to reproduce about two-thirds 
of Thomas's poem. The English minstrel disposed of the whole 
in about 3500. In contrast to the "quaint English" and 
elaborate stanza in which the story is obscured and disfigured, 
Robert places Thomas's irreproachable version in couplets. And 



ROMANCE 



rightly so. The Anglo-Norman poem, simple and clear, reveals 
in the author a very high degree of poetic power. Truly, Robert 
had reason to say that " over all gests " the story of Tristram was 
worthy to be esteemed " if men it said as Thomas made it." But 
such a remark would in truth have been unwarranted if it applied 
to the English poem. The author was a clever rhymer, and 
some passages of his work have much vigour, but had not the 
adventures of Tristram been well known before, from French 
narratives current in England, this poem would not have sufficed 
to spread his fame. 

We have no other English treatment of the Tristram story 
until we come to Malory's redaction of one version of the late 
French prose romance. Here is a hotch-potch of miscellaneous 
adventures, many of which have nothing to do with the central 
theme and serve only to prolong the tale. Echoes of classical 
antiquity, reminiscences of the Bible, bits of popular tradition, 
independent works of different cycles, are to be discovered 
in the vast accumulation. But above all it is noticeable how 
the costuming has changed. The manners and dress of the 
heroes and heroines are those of the late days of chivalry. 
Tristram is a vastly different personage from what he was even 
in the time of Thomas. He is now a conventional knight- 
errant, who spends his time going about from one tourney to 
another, ever on the lookout for adventure. In the earlier 
stories, Arthur and his knights have practically no part to play. 
Now, one at least of them surely appears on every page, and 
no uninformed reader would for a moment suspect that Tristram 
was a hero once quite independent of Arthur, and that his 
thoroughgoing connection with the Round Table is to be found 
only in late compilations, which departed far too freely from 
trustworthy tradition, in order to gratify the taste of an uncritical 
Continental audience whose appetite for familiar adventures 
appears to have been insatiate. 

Inasmuch as Malory drew almost one-third of his Morte 
Darthur (mostly to be found in the eighth, ninth, and tenth 



THE CYCLE OF SIR TRISTRAM 



books) from the French prose Tristan, a word concerning his 
method may be in place here. There is so great diversity in 
the various manuscripts of a prose romance that it is well-nigh 
impossible to state just what process was followed in any par- 
ticular instance. But in general it may be said that from a 
common archetype scribes developed divergent versions, each of 
which, being repeatedly copied, was differently altered by different 
sorts of men to answer different purposes. There appears to 
have been a " vulgate," and an "enlarged" Tristan, the former 
going under the name of a supposed "Luces de Gast," the 
latter under that of an equally fictitious " Helie de Boron." It 
was from some manuscript of the vulgate version that Malory 
drew his story. Here, more than anywhere else, save only in 
the Quest of the Holy Grail, he abstains from " reducing." 

We claim the immortal legend of Tristram and Ysolt as 
peculiarly ours, not only because it was formed in its present 
shape in England, being a possession of our composite race before 
and after the Conquest, but also because it is localised in 
Britain ; and, as is well known, all nations cling to the traditions 
of the country in which they have settled, even though to 
come into power they had to dispossess those to whom these 
traditions rightly belonged. Mark was a king of Cornwall, 
and that, it seems, in history, before he became the legendary 
husband of Ysolt. His castle was at Tintagel on the Cornish 
coast. Tristram, originally a Pictish or Scandinavian hero, was 
probably born in Anglesey and lived in Wales. One Ysolt was 
a princess of Ireland, the other of Brittany. In these neigh- 
bouring lands the action passes almost exclusively, and the hero 
traverses the dangerous waters between with as much equanimity 
as any Norse viking whose home was on the sea. The people 
among whom the Tristram story grew up were as familiar with 
ocean as with land pathways. 

The saga certainly originated in heathen times, when 
Christianity had not softened the minds of men ; in a barbarous 
epoch when people lived a rough, uncivilised life 'in rude siim 



ROMANCE 213 



plicity ; in a time when chivalrous warfare was undreamed of, 
when heroes fought on foot, using as weapons arrows speeded 
by the cross-bow, or javelins thrown by hand. If we stop to 
think of it, the manners and customs of the court of the Cornish 
king are seen to be often barbarous and savage. No Christian 
sentiments govern the hearts of the characters. Might is right ; 
cunning is praiseworthy ; passions are unbridled, and impulses 
unrestrained. The primordial instincts of men and women are 
seen unveiled. 

Tristram and Ysolt are the most illustrious lovers of British, 
perhaps of any romance. Wherein do they differ typically from 
those of other lands ? In this, that the whole of their lives 
moves about the pivot of their mutual devotion. With them both 
love is a persistent, uncontrollable, supreme passion. It is the 
end that justifies every means, the cause of an uninterrupted 
ecstasy that renders death at any moment as welcome as life. 
The heroines of classical story never moved their lovers to the 
same overmastering passion, never controlled their destinies by 
the same mysterious charm. In the grave chansons de geste love 
was little welcome : women played no dominant role in the 
careers of the stern warriors of Charlemagne, ever engaged in 
manly conflict for communal gain. In the North, on the other 
hand, there is intensity and passion in abundance. There the 
women share the greatest joys of the men ; they stimulate, incite, 
enter into the struggle themselves. Yet theirs was self-sacrifice 
that asked no return, devotion that demanded no favour. Life 
was too real for music, time too precious for reverie. Men 
were not men, they felt, who waited on luxurious ease. With 
Guthrun blood is thicker than any amorous philtre. Without 
a scruple she deceives her husband to get revenge for her 
brother's death, but not to indulge a guilty love. The proto- 
types of the Northern heroines are the strong, impetuous, war- 
like goddesses of Valhalla, clad in birnie, and pointing with 
flashing spear to the scene of strife ; those of the Celtic 
lady-loves are the exquisitely beautiful, richly attired, marvel- 



214 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

lously subtle queens of a joyous Otherworld, who fascinate and 
soothe. 

It is not possible here to trace the history of the Tristram 
legend either in internal growth or in dissemination. It is well 
to remember, however, that there was no one in the Middle Ages 
in Western Europe who did* not know it in some form. All the 
great mediaeval poets and those of the Renaissance evince their 
profound appreciation of its charm. In our own time, Tennyson, 
Matthew Arnold, and Swinburne in England, Wagner in Germany, 
and others in many places, have reawakened it to power. 

We may leave the hero with the presentation of one aspect of 
his character that Malory exalted. It will indicate another 
reason why he was beloved in England, and show how the stories 
of Arthur affected the conceptions of the nobility. 

And so Tristram learned to be a harper passing all other, that there 
was none, such called in no country, and so in harping and on instruments 
of music he applied him in his youth for to learn. And after, as he growed 
in might and strength, he laboured ever in hunting and hawking, so that 
never gentleman more that ever we heard tell of. And as the book saith, 
he began good measures of blowing of beasts of venery and beasts of chase, 
and all manner of vermains ; and all these terms we have yet of hawking 
and hunting. And therefore the book of venery, of hawking and hunting, 
is called the book of Sir Tristram. Wherefore, as me seemeth, all gentlemen 
that bear old arms ought of right to honour Sir Tristram for the goodly terms 
that gentlemen have and use, and shall to the day of doom, that thereby 
in a manner all men of worship may dissever a gentleman from a yeoman, 
and from a yeoman a villain. For he that gentle is will draw unto him 
gentle taches, and to follow the custom of noble gentlemen. 

The Cycle of Sir Gawain 

Of all the heroes of British romance, not excepting Arthur 
himself, Gawain is the most admirable and the most interesting. 
In the early poems of the cycle he is invariably represented as 
the mirror of courtesy, a truly noble knight without fear or 
reproach. His courage was unequalled, his benevolence un- 
bounded, his wisdom acknowledged by all. He was "the 



ROMANCE 215 



golden -tongued," "the invincible," "gay, gracious, and good." 
" Ever," we are told by Wace, " he was wont to do more than 
he agreed and to give more than he promised." Arthur loved 
him most of all his followers, and his companions measured 
their exploits by his. Tennyson made a conspicuous blunder 
in conceiving him as " adulterous," " false," " reckless," " irrev- 
erent." Nowhere does the irreligious Gawain appear in English 
literature before the time of Malory. In all sources that present 
^ the original saga in its purity, the respect for him is universal, 
unfeigned, and justified. He was the beloved of all, the envied 
of none. 

Although there is no long biographical romance devoted to 
him, as to Tristram and Lancelot and Merlin, there is hardly 
an Arthurian story in which Gawain does not play a distinguished 
part, and there are numerous poems about single episodes in 
his career. The several Middle English poems which have 
him for a hero are all connected with French versions, but in 
most instances the direct originals have disappeared. Probably 
some of these were Anglo-Norman, short episodic poems such 
as appear to have been written by Bleheris, in what has been 
called a Geste of Sir Gawain, and utilised later by writers like 
Wauchier de Denain, a continuator of Crestien's Perceval. 

Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1370) is incomparably 
the best of the English romances, and one of the finest in any 
language. It is a misfortune that we have no information about 
the author's life and personality; for, next to Chaucer his con- 
temporary, he is perhaps the greatest of our mediaeval poets. 
In another volume we shall consider his merit in general as a 
literary artist : here we have only to do with his work as an 
Arthurian romance. The author, it may be said, lived in the 
West Midland district (probably Cheshire), where the memory 
of Gawain seems long to have lingered. He wrote in a very 
elaborate stanza, combining alliteration and rhyme. 

King Arthur and his knights are assembled at Camelot (Somersetshire) 
one New Year's Day, awaiting some adventure, when a gigantic knight, clad 



216 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

only in green, and seated on a marvellous green steed, rides into the banquet 
hall and challenges any one present to exchange blows with him. He will 
give his opponent the first stroke, on condition that he may have the privilege 
of returning it a year later. The knights are all speechless at first, but, 
being taunted with cowardice by the stranger, Arthur speedily rises and offers 
to undertake the exploit himself. Gawain, however, induces the king to 
grant him the favour, and, after making arrangements with the Green Knight 
for the return blow, to be given at the Green Chapel, the stranger's residence, 
he takes the latter's axe and hews off his head. The Green Knight, however, 
speedily mounts his horse, reminds Gawain of his agreement, and rides off 
with his head in his hand, leaving the warriors dazed and fearful. When the 
appointed time approaches, Gawain, much to the sorrow of all at court, sets 
out to fulfil his covenant, and after many adventures reaches on Christmas 
eve a beautiful castle, where he seeks shelter. Learning that the Green 
Chapel is but two miles away, he accepts the urgent invitation of his host to 
remain with him for the intervening three days, and makes good cheer in the 
castle. After a magnificent Christmas feast, his gracious host suggests that 
his guest remain in the castle to be entertained by his wife, while he goes 
off early to the chase, covenanting at the same time to exchange at 
nightfall whatever of value each obtains during the day. In the knight's 
absence, Gawain is sorely tempted by the blandishments of the beautiful wife, 
who frankly seeks his love. But he parries her advances with courtly 
art, and only takes a kiss she offers. This he gives to his host in the 
evening, and receives in return all the spoils of the chase. Three times 
the knight is thus tested, and each time refuses the lady's love, and 
all else she offers, except a magic girdle, which, she assures him, will 
render the wearer invulnerable. The kisses he returns to his host, accord- 
ing to their covenant thrice repeated ; but the gift of the girdle he keeps 
unrevealed. 

When New Year's Day arrives, Gawain makes ready for the combat, and 
starts for the Green Chapel, his host providing him with a guide. The latter 
tries to dissuade him from undertaking so perilous an adventure ; but Gawain, 
undismayed, scorns the veiy appearance of cowardice or bad faith. He arrives 
alone at the Green Chapel, a ghastly trysting - place, where he hears the 
gruesome noise of an axe being sharpened on a grindstone. Soon the giant 
appears, weapon in hand, and praises Gawain's fidelity in keeping his word. 
Gawain makes ready to receive the blow, and after one or two feints the 
giant at last lets the axe fall, in such a way, however, as to do no serious 
harm. Gawain, having thus fulfilled his promise, starts up and prepares to 
defend himself against any further attack. But the Green Knight bids him 
not be disturbed : Gawain is, he recognises, the most valiant knight in the 
world, and he honours him for his valour. He explains that he and the host 



ROMANCE 217 



of the castle are one and the same person, that he was fully aware of the 
lady's wiles, and that all had been done at his instigation to test Gawain's 
virtue. He begs the hero to return with him to his dwelling, where he 
promises him a fair reception, but Gawain insists on going at once to 
Camelot. He is abashed at the discovery of his deceit in accepting the 
girdle, and tells his shame to his companions of the Round Table. They 
make light of the matter, and agree ever after to wear a green lace similar to 
his in memory of the remarkable event. Thus Gawain's fame was spread still 
more throughout the land. 

This romance is made up of two distinct parts nowhere else 
so connected — the beheading incident and the chastity test. 
The first is closely paralleled in the primitive tale of Bricrirfs 
Feast, and elsewhere in Irish, where Cuchulinn is the hero ; and 
there can be no doubt that it existed as an independent Celtic 
tale in very early times. It reappears in Old French, attached to 
Caradoc in the verse Perceval, and to Lancelot in the prose 
version ; but both of these are late redactions introducing features 
obviously not primitive. In the French Mule sans Frein and the 
German Diu Krone, the adventure is ascribed to Gawain, who 
was unquestionably the earlier hero. The English poem is 
based on a French (Anglo-Norman ?) account ; but the author 
treated his material with a great deal of freedom, and the unusual 
charm of the narrative (which no brief summary can at all 
reproduce) is assuredly due to him. It was probably his idea to 
connect with this episode the feature of the chastity test, of which 
many parallels exist. The statement at the end of the poem 
about the knights' wearing the lace in Gawain's honour seems to 
have been suggested by the establishment of the Order of the 
Garter about 1 348. 

In a short poem in six-line stanzas, The Green Knight, preserved 
only in a fifteenth -century form, we have practically the same 
story localised in the "west country." This poem, though of 
slight literary value, would be more significant than is usually 
thought if one could establish it as independent of the longer one, 
indicating a simple form previously existing in Anglo-Norman or 
English. Similarly preserved (in the Percy Folio MS.), and in 



218 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

the same stanza, occur two much more interesting poems, The 
Turk and Gawain and The Carl of Carlisle, which probably 
arose on English soil. 

Because of the very imperfect state of The Turk and Gawain, 
it is difficult to determine what was the nature of the original story. 
It appears, however, that Gawain visits an underworld castle 
inhabited by giants, where he tries his skill in various games, not 
unlike the way Thor visits the dwelling of Utgarthaloki in the 
prose Edda. By the aid of his companion, a "Turk" (dwarf?), 
he outwits his opponents, and is saved from death. The Turk, 
in return for his services, asks the hero to cut off his head, and 
Gawain consents somewhat reluctantly. As soon as the blood 
flows, the Turk becomes a handsome knight, and the people of 
the castle are also freed from enchantment. 

The Carl exists not only in stanzaic form, but also in a version 
in couplets. It contains the theme (found variously elsewhere) 
of the host who maltreats or slays all guests who do not implicitly 
obey his requests. The hero of the tale is the first one spared, 
and that because he does unquestioningly whatever his host bids 
him do. The author of the better version begins in the regular 
minstrel style : " Listen, lordings, a little stond (while)," and then 
in about a hundred lines acquaints his hearers with the names 
of a large number of romantic heroes known in England. He 
speaks particularly of Sir Ironside, a warrior who figures in 
Malory's seventh book as Gareth's opponent. The minstrel, 
evidently of low station, wrote 'in a boorish style, to please an 
audience of common folk. 

In the Awntyrs (Adventures) of Arthur at the Tarn Wadling 
we have another poem in honour of Gawain, a poem of exceptional 
merit, vigorously and freshly told. Tarn Wadling covered about a 
hundred acres of land in the forest of Inglewood in Cumberland. 
The author was quite familiar with the district and introduced 
many names of actual places, most of which are easy to identify. 
He probably lived in Lancashire or Cheshire about the middle of 
the fourteenth century. 



ROMANCE 219 



King Arthur, while with his followers at Carlisle, one day goes hunting. 
Gawain accompanies Queen Guinevere, who is gaily dressed and rides a 
milk-white horse. All the rest become absorbed in the chase, and he is left 
alone with the Queen. She is lying under a laurel tree just at undern when 
the adventure befalls. Suddenly the day grows as dark as midnight, and a 
fierce storm of rain, sleet, and snow arises. Then appears a flame from the 
lake, like Lucifer, and yelling piteously glides towards Guinevere. The ghastly 
ghost is fearful to behold, covered with toads and embraced by snakes. The 
dogs make off in terror, and the other animals escape as they can. But 
Gawain, undaunted, boldly conjures the spirit to tell her purpose. She 
declares that she is the mother of Guinevere, suffering this punishment because 
of her sins. She begs a sight of her daughter. When Gawain brings the 
Queen, the spirit bids her take warning from her mother's terrible fate, and 
mend her ways. Guinevere implores her to say if aught can lighten her care, 
and learns that thirty trentals of masses will bring her to bliss. She is told 
also what qualities she herself should strive to attain. Then the spirit pro- 
nounces a prophecy regarding Arthur's fate, and weeping departs to her 
woeful dwelling. The clouds disperse, and the sun shines brightly again. 
Arthur collects his men, and all ride together to Randolph's Hall. 

While at supper, a lady enters the hall accompanied by a knight splendidly 
armed. Arthur welcomes them and asks their mission. The knight gives 
his name as Galleroun, Prince of Galloway and other adjoining lands. This 
district had been won by Arthur and given to Gawain. The stranger 
challenges any one to meet him in single combat to settle their dominion. 
Arthur agrees to find a match for him the next day at noon, and urges him to 
accept hospitality meanwhile. Gawain conducts him to a rich pavilion, where 
he is royally served. He himself asks for permission to undertake the fight. 
The following morning, in the presence of lords and ladies, the great encounter 
takes place. Fiercely the two brave men struggle, and great is the anxiety of 
Gawain's friends. Guinevere especially is troubled when she sees her hero 
wounded, and her grey eyes flow with tears. But he renews the fight with 
courage, and soon conquers his foe. Galleroun's lady now pleads with the 
Queen to save her lemman, and Guinevere begs Arthur to stop the joust: 
This, however, is not necessary, for Galleroun admits that he has been beaten, 
and that Gawain is " in this middle earth matchless of might." He offers his 
sword to the King, and renounces all claim to his possessions. Knights hasten 
to care for the wounded and weary combatants. Then Arthur offers Gawain 
Glamorgan and other places if he will relinquish his rights and leave the 
valiant Galleroun his present possessions. Gawain readily yields to the King's 
wish, and all repair to Carlisle, where Galleroun weds his lady, '.' with gifts 
and gersouns (presents) of Sir Gawain the gay." Arthur celebrates a feast of 
the Round Table, into which fellowship Galleroun is received. 



THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN 



Guinevere, we read in the last stanza, accomplishes her vows to redeem 
her mother's soul, and has an extraordinary number of masses sung. Thus 
ends this ' ' ferly " at the Tarn Wadling. 

The second half of the poem, which deals with the fight of 
Galleroun and Gawain, gives simply a conventional situation, 
vitalised by the author's imaginative power ; the first half, 
curiously combined with it, deserves some comment. The setting 
of the hunt, during which certain persons get separated from the 
rest and then experience an adventure, is a commonplace of 
romance, yet always effective. The feature of the ghostly appear- 
ance is but an adaptation of a story usually called the Trentah of 
St. Gregory^ where the Pope's mother is the sufferer for her un- 
confessed sins of lechery. This story is preserved, it may be said, 
in no less than three poetical versions in English. Guinevere had 
long ere this won an unenviable reputation for infidelity, and it 
was easy to have this story attached to her, even as in Chestre's 
Sir Lminfal she is made to play the role of Potiphar's wife, pre- 
viously ascribed in the story to an unnamed queen. 

The Awfityrs {Adventures) of Arthur \s akin in inspiration and 
form to Gawain and the Green Knight. It arose in the same region, 
at about the same time$. and reflects the same conditions of life 
and thought. The author's vision included both the serious and 
the gay in life ; he rebuked earnestly the frivolously incontinent, 
but showed his delight in noble merriment. He had much of the 
old Saxon attitude ; he employed alliterative speech. But the 
gallantry of France had softened his tone and affected his phrase. 
The refinement of gentleness pervades the poem ; and elaborate 
stanzaic structure differentiates it from works of the Germanic 
past. The stanza is composed of nine long and four short allitera- 
tive lines, rhyming ababababcdddc. The last four lines form a 
sort of "wheel," and one stanza is connected with the next by 
the carrying over of words in its last line to the first line of the 
following. This feature, most familiar in the structure of the 
Pearl (by the same author as Gawain and the Green Knight) is 
also characteristic of another Arthurian poem, Go/agros and 



ROMANCE 



Gawain, a product, it would seem, of the same time and district, 
notwithstanding the fact that its only extant form is more Northern, 
preserved in a print of one of the early Scottish presses (1508). 
In Scotland, it is noteworthy, the book obtained considerable 
popularity. The tale is made up of two distinct parts- of unequal 
length : the first of these occupies some eighteen stanzas, the 
second the remaining eighty-five. 

Arthur is represented as setting out in royal array, with a great host, to 
Tuscany. After much wearisome travel, they come to a fair castle, where the 
king determines to ask lodging. Kay begs permission to make inquiries. He 
enters the open gate and penetrates to the hall, but finds no occupant at first. 
At last he observes a dwarf roasting a fowl on an open fire. Kay snatches the 
bird roughly and is about to devour it, when the dwarf makes the hall resound 
with his uproar, and a grim lord appears. He reproves Kay for his bad 
manners ; but finding him boastful and ill of speech, he strikes him to the floor 
and then withdraws. As soon as he recovers, Kay hurries to the King and 
tells of his failure. 

Then spake Sir Gawain, the gay, gracious, and good, 
Sir, ye know that Sir Kay is^ crabbed of kind ; 
I read (counsel) ye make forth a man meeker of mood, 
That will with fairness fraist (try) friendship to find ! 

Arthur thereupon urges Gawain himself to go and seek shelter once more. 
His courteous request is immediately granted, and the knight welcomes Arthur 
to his hall and banquets him richly. There the King and his men remain 
four days, after which they continue their journey. 

They come after a while to another castle by a river. The King, astonished 
at its magnificence, inquires to whom it belongs. Learning from a follower, 
Sir Spinogras, that it is held by a very powerful lord, Golagros, who sub- 
mits to no one, Arthur vows to make him swear allegiance later. He 
pushes on to "the city of Christ" (a late touch, to have him emulate Char- 
lemagne), but on his way back halts at the castle. He despatches Gawain, 
Lancelot, and Ywain to the lord to demand submission. They are urged by 
Spinogras to be very polite in their petition, for the lord is an uncommonly 
doughty warrior. " Make him no menace," he urges, "but all measure" ; 
for " it hinders never for to be hendly (gracious) of speech." They follow his 
advice when they come into the knight's presence. 

Then Sir Gawain the gay, good, and gracious, 

That ever was builded in bliss, and bounty embraced ; 



THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN 



Jolly and gentle, and full chivalrous, 

That never point of his price was founden defaced ; 

Eager and ertand (enterprising), and right aunterous, 

Illumined with loyalty, and with love laced, 

Mels (announces) of the message to Sir Golagros. 

But, despite Gawain's fair words, Golagros will not at once yield up the 
freedom his elders have long preserved, and Arthur feels forced to besiege his 
castle. After several single combats in which the King's followers are mostly 
successful, Golagros himself appears, and Gawain goes forth to meet him. 
The terrible struggle between them is described at length. In the end Gawain 
overcomes his opponent, yet is loath to slay him. But Golagros prefers death 
to shame. Magnanimously, then, to save appearances for his foe, Gawain 
agrees to go with him to his castle, as if he were himself beaten. Arthur is 
overcome with extreme grief when he sees "the flower of knighthood" thus 
quit the field ; but the situation is soon made plain. Golagros explains to his 
men how he has fared in the battle, and how Gawain has generously spared 
him. They agree to submit to Arthur, and all together make their way to the 
King to promise fealty. The incident ends happily : the King's vow is fulfilled, 
and the friendship of Golagros is secured. 

In the Avowing of King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Kay, and 
Sir Baldwin of Britain we have a poem which may well be con- 
nected with those just preceding, not only because it deals 
extensively with Gawain, but also because it is written in the same 
temper and is localised in the same district of Tarn Wadling and 
Inglewood Forest. Here too is enforced the contrast between 
the considerate Gawain, who generously aids his beaten foe, 
and Kay " that out of time boasts and blows," yet is regularly 
defeated. Gawain again appears as the avowed servant of 
Guinevere. He is the mainstay of Arthur, the adored of all at 
court. The poem is also interesting as giving an important role 
to Bishop Baldwin, a knight unknown to French romance, though 
he is mentioned several times in the Welsh records, and in 
Malory, as constable of the court. He was probably confused 
with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Richard's time. In the 
Carl of Carlisle, the trio, Gawain, Kay, and Sir Baldwin, appeared 
hunting together. Here the bishop is a purveyor of wise 
domestic philosophy. In general structure the Avoiving belongs 



ROMANCE 223 



to the type of " gab " literature, which we have seen exemplified 
in the fabulous Pilgrimage of Charlemagne. 

Arthur, lying at Carlisle, hears of a great boar in Inglewood Forest, 
which he sets out to hunt, accompanied only by Gawain, Kay, and Baldwin. 
When they discover the boar, Arthur makes an avow to catch him himself 
alone, and bids the others make similar avows. Gawain swears to watch at 
Tarn Wadling all night ; Kay, to ride through the forest till day, and slay 
any one who refuses to let him pass ; Baldwin, never to be jealous of his 
wife, never to refuse meat to any man, or fear a threat of death. Each goes 
his own way. The King finds the boar, and slays it after a hard encounter. 
Then, inasmuch as he "couth of venery," he brittles him, and hangs him on 
an oak. Kay in the forest meets a knight, Sir Menealf of the Mountain, 
carrying off a beautiful lady against her will. He challenges him to fight, 
but is easily overcome. Then he urges Menealf to go to the Tarn Wadling, 
where Gawain will requite him. Gawain espouses his friend's cause. He 
overcomes the knight in two jousts — the first to ransom Kay, the second to 
free the young lady. Menealf agrees to take the maiden to Guinevere, and 
say that he has been sent by " Gawain, her knight," to be at her disposition. 
Kay, it is significant, persistently taunts Menealf when Gawain beats him ; 
while Gawain tries to make up for his companion's rudeness by acts of 
considerate kindness. Menealf, we learn, is received by Arthur as a knight 
of the Round Table, and Gawain is lauded. Baldwin likewise proves himself 
faithful in the test of each of his avows. 

The poem is a peculiar combination of unlike material from 
different sources. It is only fused into the appearance of unity 
by the author's skill. Arthur here is less of a royal figure than 
usual. He appears as a boar-hunter, as in Welsh tradition, and 
arranges practical jokes to test his comrades, for such his knights 
are. It is a work of the late fourteenth century, in stanzas of 
sixteen lines each, rhyming aaab cab dddb eeeb. Alliteration 
is only fitfully employed, not pervasively as in the West 
Midland poems. Yet the heroes are all presented popularly in 
an English way, without the over-refinement and sophistication 
of the French of the time. That on the Continent also Gawain 
and Kay were similarly regarded as of contrasting character is 
apparent from the following counsel which the God of Love gives 
to the lover in the Roman de la Pose : 



224 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

The case 
Of Arthur's Seneschal, Sir Kay, 
Remember : loved he to rnissay, 
Fulfilled of hatred, spite, and spleen. 
Right well was Gawain loved, I ween, 
For courtesy, while Kay was blamed 
For ribald speech, and evil famed 
Among all knights for boorishness. 

In the Wedding of Sir Gawain, a fifteenth-century stanzaic 
poem, somewhat over 900 lines long, we have Gawain figuring as 
the hero of an ancient story, of which several English versions 
exist in which he plays no part. It is the familiar tale of 
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, the tale of Florent in Gower's Confessio 
Amantis. Gower appears to have found the narrative in an 
example-book, while Chaucer relied on some poem more like a 
Breton lay. In the Percy MS. is another version, closely con- 
nected with the Wedding, but independent. In these two alone 
is Gawain mentioned. 

Again the scene is the same : Arthur out hunting in Inglewood Forest. 
Following a hart, the King is separated from his men, when he is accosted by 
a warrior, who says that he intends now to requite him for having deprived 
him of his lands and given them to Gawain (as in the Awntyrs). Arthur 
pleads that it would be dishonourable to slay him unarmed, and offers to 
make amends. The knight grants him a respite of a twelvemonth on con- 
dition that he return then to the same place, alone and in the same array, 
and say what it is that women desire most. If he bring no answer, he shall 
lose his head. The King agrees and departs to join his companions. " His 
heart was wonder heavy," but in no one did he confide except Gawain. 
The latter suggests that they two ride in different directions, question every 
one, and collect answers. This they do, and each fills a large book. But 
Arthur is still nervous, and decides to continue the inquiry. In the forest he 
meets a loathly woman, whose hideous features are noted in detail. She tells 
the King that she knows the only answer that will save his life, but this she 
will reveal only on condition that he gives her Gawain to wed. He declares 
he will not do it without Gawain's permission, but he will do his best to 
induce him thus to rescue his lord from peril. Gawain, under the circum- 
stances, needs no persuasion. He is ready to marry the hag, though she 
were a fiend, as foul as the devil, "or else were I not your friend." No 
wonder Arthur acknowledged that of all knights Gawain bore the flower. 



ROMANCE 225 



When Arthur again meets Dame Ragnell (for so the loathly creature has 
called herself), she tells him that what women most desire is sovereignty. 
Arthur, thus enlightened, rides to his tryst ; but not until all other answers 
are rejected does he use this. The knight divines whence the wisdom 
came, and curses her who gave it, Ragnell, his sister. Gawain fulfils his 
part of the compact, marries the foul lady with all publicity, and takes her 
to his chamber. When, once bedded with her, she is transformed into the 
fairest of women, and when he gives her the sovereignty, leaving her to decide 
whether it would be better to be fair during the day or night, she says she 
shall be always beautiful. Then follows a pleasant scene. Arthur, anxious 
about Gawain, fearing lest the hag should slay him, comes in the morning to 
learn what has happened. He rejoices when he hears of Gawain's good 
fortune, and avows his eternal gratitude for his loyal love. 

The earliest form of the story is to be found in Irish, but there 
it is much less developed. In the Irish tale, the lady in loath- 
some shape has evidently transformed herself by her own power 
in order to test a favoured youth. But she is made to represent 
allegoricaily an abstraction. She is the symbol of the Sovereignty 
of Erin, which he is destined to win. In Chaucer she seems also 
to be a free agent, a good fay who desires only to aid, though 
at the same time to prove, a youth she chooses to please. She 
first appears with a bevy of four-and-twenty maidens dancing on 
the green. In Gower, however, she is represented as afflicted by 
the spell of a stepmother, from which she can only be released by 
marriage with a valiant knight. Foreign features have thus 
become gradually blended with the original elements to produce 
a strange result. The transformed lady, being the sister of the 
giant-magician, is in possession of the secret and reveals it to the 
hero who will help her to freedom. The idea of sovereignty 
perpetuates itself, but becomes the answer to the question what 
women most desire. 

We can only surmise why this story was attached to Gawain. 
It may have been simply to enhance its interest, or the change 
was suggested by a desire to picture the loving relations between 
the king and his nephew, to display above all the nobility of the 
self-sacrificing hero, who never failed in point of honour. But 
perhaps there was a deeper cause. That Gawain had relations 

Q 



226 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

with a lady of the Otherw'orld is a fact attested by numerous other 
romantic stories attached to him. That he dwelt with her in her 
land is equally certain. Despite all the localisations of his grave 
by unimaginative folk, there was a well-founded tradition that he 
disappeared mysteriously from the world, like Launfal and 
Guingamor, like Arthur and Ywain. This tradition was 
evidently in Chaucer's mind when, in the Squire's Tale, he 
remarked that even Gawain, "with his olde curteisye," if he had 
" come ageyn out of Fairye," could not have saluted a fair 
assembly more suitably than the knight upon the steed of brass 
who rode into the presence of King Cambynskan. 

In a striking passage at the end of the Wedding, the author 
says that Gawain lived with his lady but five years, during which 
time he abandoned warlike pursuits, and that he afterwards 
cherished the memory of this love above any other similar 
experience. By the beautiful lady, moreover, he had the son 
Gyngalyn, who afterwards became famous. A special cycle of 
romance deals with the adventures of this son of Gawain, 
Guinglain, otherwise known as Libeaus Desconus, The Fair 
Unknown. The original French version of the romance con- 
cerning him is lost, but in the English Libeaus Desconus we 
have a redaction that permits us to determine its scope, if not 
its style. It was a simple biographical romance, conventional 
in general structure, but containing uncommonly primitive 
material. 

Apart from the interesting account of the birth and boyhood of the hero, 
to which we shall return, we have a series of adventures performed by him 
which are all characteristic : a fight at the Ford Perilous ; an encounter with 
giants ; a beauty competition for a prize sparrowhawk, settled by single combat 
between the lovers of the rival ladies ; a dispute about a fairy dog (like Fetit- 
Criu), which last induces a visit to the fairy castle of the Golden Isle, where 
the hero is duped by an enchantress whose commands he disobeys ; a combat 
with a lord of another castle with a "custom," who only gives hospitality 
on condition that the visitor beats him in fight ; and finally, the rescue (by a 
kiss) of a lady enchanted into the form of a hideous serpent. By means of 
this heroic exploit, made possible by his viclory over two fierce enchanters 



ROMANCE 227 



who held her captive at Sinadoun, Libeaus wins the transformed princess as a 
bride, and returns with her to Arthur's court, where they marry in splendour, 
and return to rule over her lands. 

Towards the close of the twelfth century, the lost French 
original of the English romance was worked over into a very 
charming poem by a knight, Renaud de Beaujeu, who wrote, 
he tells us, not professionally, but for private reasons, to evince 
his love for a lady and to show her what he could do. 

Not satisfied with having the hero achieve the adventure of the Jier baiser, 
with which the romance naturally ought to end, he represents him as sending 
the transformed princess back to court to await his return, while he sets 
off himself to win the fay of the Golden Isle, with whom he is desperately 
in love. He succeeds in obtaining her pardon for his previous neglect, and 
they dwell together for a time in indescribable happiness. But finally he 
hears of a tourney that Arthur has proclaimed in the hope of luring him 
back, and he determines to abandon luxury and ease for a more honourable 
life. The fay, learning of his decision, has him transported while asleep 
away from the castle, of which when he wakes he sees no trace, and he makes 
his way with his faithful squire to the Isle of Valledon, where the tourney 
is appointed. There he is victorious over all his opponents, is heartily 
welcomed, when his incognito is removed, by the King and his father Gawain, 
and only then weds the Queen of Wales whom he has freed. The poet, 
however, felt that this was not the ending he desired, and promised, if his 
work met with favour, to take him back to his true love, the fay. 

The material of this cycle was widely popular. The early 
(Anglo-Norman?) work was redacted in German and Italian 
poems, and there is a later version in French prose. The English 
poem also was long familiar in England, as is evident from the 
numerous references to it in later works. It enjoyed, moreover, 
the doubtful honour of appearing in the list of "romances of 
prys" in Sir Thppas. Since it was written about 1350, in the 
neighbourhood of Kent, the author has been identified by 
some with Thomas Chestre, the author of the Lannfal, but 
the evidence is inconclusive. The English Libeaus Desconus, 
because of the "rhyme doggerel" (the tail -rhyme strophe) in 
which it is composed and the minstrel's method, is incompar- 



228 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

ably less attractive than the treatment by Renaud of the same 
material. 

This son of Gawain is to be identified with the son of that 
hero and the lady known only as the sister of Brandelis, 
at a meeting recorded in the English poem, the Jeaste of Sir 
Gawain, probably drawn from incidents in an (Anglo-Norman ?) 
poem akin to the source of the Perceval of Wauchier de Denain. 

Gawain, out hunting, happens on a beautiful lady in a pavilion. She 
accords him her love. But her brothers, who later appear, are indignant 
at the situation, and challenge him to fight. His offers to amend his wrong 
being refused, he engages all three one after another. The first two he 
readily conquers, but with the third, Brandelis, he has a long and indecisive 
combat. At dusk they give up the struggle, agreeing, however, to fight to 
the end the next time they meet.- Gawain begs Brandelis to befriend his 
gentle sister ; but when the hero is gone, Brandelis treats her so cruelly that 
she leaves the castle, and is never heard of afterwards. 

The English poet says that Gawain and Brandelis did not meet again, 
for which Arthur's knights were glad. This is clearly a distorted con- 
clusion. In the Perceval they renew the struggle some years later at 
the King's court. When the fight is at its fiercest, Brandelis's beautiful 
sister appears with her young son, who pleads with both uncle and father 
to end the strife. Finally, Arthur himself makes peace, and receives 
Brandelis into the fellowship of the Round Table. 

The adventures of Guinglain illustrate a favourite type of 
biographical romance. A young hero, brought up alone in a 
forest by his mother, in ignorance of the world and his parentage, 
only called by her " Fair Son," learns by accident of Arthur's 
court, makes his way thither, and is welcomed by the king, who 
permits him, despite his youth, to undertake a difficult task 
that soon presents itself. Hereupon he evinces surprising 
bravery, and overcomes all obstacles to his mission. Connected 
stories of this kind doubtless existed early in Celtic speech, as 
the fifteenth -century Gaelic Lay of the Gnat Fool sufficiently 
testifies. In the Breton lay of Tyolet, moreover, we read of 
a young hero whose et fauces are practically identical with those 
of Gawain's son. 



ROMANCE . 229 



Sir Perceval is but another, though the most famous, of the 
same family of popular heroes, undisciplined but richly endowed 
by nature, simple but beautiful, bold and brave — heroes who 
flash upon the chivalrous world like meteors, in the full brilliance 
of splendid accomplishment, unexampled from the start, run a 
swift course in valorous undertaking, finally achieve a special 
quest which was the object of their career, and then become 
decorative figures at Arthur's court. 

The deeds of Perceval were best known to French readers 
from the vast poem (some 60,000 lines long) on the Grail Quest 
by Crestien and his continuators ; to Germans from the parallel 
poem Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach ; to the Welsh from 
the story of Peredur in the Mabinogion ; while the English had 
before them not only the French romances concerning him, but 
also the native work of an unknown author which bears the 
title Sir Perceval of Galles. This work occupies a position 
apart from the French and German accounts of the hero by 
virtue of the fact that in it the Holy Grail is never mentioned, 
while in them Perceval is the one who achieves the quest. The 
author may have been influenced by the French Perceval; but 
he probably only recast earlier material, without, it would seem, 
departing from it in general outline or essential substance. 

Sir Perceval is here represented as a nephew of King Arthur. His 
father has been maliciously slain by a knight at court, and his mother 
has thereupon fled to save her son, and brought him up in a solitary retreat, 
in the hope that he may never be entangled in chivalrous pursuits. But 
when fifteen years of age the youth accidentally encounters Gawain, Kay, 
and others of their fellows in rich array, and thinks one of them must surely 
be the great God of whom his mother has told them ; but is courteously 
informed by Gawain that they are only followers of Arthur. The boy 
immediately determines to seek the King, and the next day abandons his 
forest home, leaves his mother behind disconsolate, and, clad in goat-skins, 
makes his way on a mare to the court, where he roughly demands knight- 
hood. Arthur promises to dub him if he overcomes a Red Knight, who 
has just insulted the whole of his assembly by an act of open defiance. The 
youth rides after him at once and slays him with his spear. Eager to get 
the dead man's armour, he can think of no way except to burn him out. 



230 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

Gawain, however, shows him how to unlace the armour, and Perceval puts 
it on. Then, unwilling to return to court, he starts out on a career of 
adventure, in which his invariable success is a constant surprise. Before 
he returns, he has wedded a beautiful lady, Lufamour of Maiden-land, whom 
he rescues from distress, and has been reunited with his mother. The Red 
Knight, we learn, was his father's murderer. The tale is one of vengeance 
achieved. 

The author of Sir Perceval was a minstrel, without much 
intelligence, and with little comprehension of the significance 
of his narrative. The poem is in 143 tail-rhyme strophes of 
sixteen lines each. It was probably written in the third quarter 
of the fourteenth century. Chaucer refers to the hero in Sir 
Thopas. 

Apparently no effort was made to translate the whole of 
Crestien's Perceval into English, though there is clear evidence 
of the acquaintance of Englishmen with it. It was different 
with another important work of his, the Ivain, or Le Chevalier au 
Lion : this excellent poem appeared during the first half of the 
fourteenth century in a Northern English redaction of uncommon 
merit, under the title Ywain and Gawain. 

The induction is very dramatic. Arthur is holding court at Carduel, when 
Calogrenant arrives and tells a group of assembled knights of an adventure 
from which he has just returned unsuccessful. When Arthur hears of it, 
he determines to undertake it himself ; but Ywain, anxious to essay it alone, 
sets out unobserved in advance. Like Calogrenant, he is entertained on 
the way by a hospitable host, and is later directed by a giant herdsman 
to the famous fountain of Broceliande. There stands the most beautiful 
tree he has ever seen, in the branches of which birds are making melody. 
By pouring water on a rock underneath, he causes a terrible storm of 
wind and rain, which is followed by a calm. Soon a knight comes 
riding to the place and attacks the hero, but Ywain at last wounds him 
so severely that he takes to flight. Ywain follows in hot pursuit to the 
castle, and manages to get inside just in time, for the falling portcullis cuts 
his steed in two. He is sheltered by a lady, called Lunete, who conceals 
him until the anger of her mistress, Laudine, is appeased, and by her 
arts manages to bring about a reconciliation. Laudine even agrees to 
marry Ywain, who thereupon becomes the defender of the fountain, and in 
this capacity overcomes Kay when he arrives with Arthur to try his fortune. 



ROMANCE 2?i 



Arthur and his knights are welcomed at the castle, and celebrate Ywain's 
marriage with its fair mistress. Eager, however, for further achievement, 
Ywain obtains permission from Laudine to set forth again, and receives 
from her a magic ring which will protect him in war. He promises to 
return within a year, but neglects to do so, incurs therefore the lady's dis- 
pleasure, and loses his ring. As a result he goes mad, and lives for a 
time a wild life in the woods, supplied with food at a lonely hermitage. 
He is cured at last by a magic remedy, and after many valorous" deeds 
returns to his lady's land and regains her favour. 

Thus far Ivain presents us with the best example in French 
romance of the primitive Celtic journey to the Otherworld. It 
belongs in general to the type of so-called imrama, or Odysseys, 
of which the most familiar examples are the voyages of Bran and 
Mailduin. The latter part of the story, after the hero's madness 
and before the final reconciliation, was probably also present in 
the version that Crestien used. 

Here Ywain is always accompanied by a helpful lion, whom he has 
rescued in a struggle with a serpent, and who affords him invaluable aid in 
extremities. One of the most interesting of his exploits is at the Castle of 
the Heavy Sorrow, where he releases a great band of distressed ladies from 
wretched captivity. Hearing that Lunete is suffering from a false accusation 
on his account, he vindicates her in a judical combat. At court, known only 
as the Knight of the Lion, he engages in a hard and long-continued fight with 
Gawain, who is also disguised by his armour. When at nightfall the two 
comrades recognise each other, they rejoice greatly. Each insists to the King 
that the other has won. This is the only episode in which Gawain plays an 
extended part ; but his presence is felt throughout. He is the knight Ywain 
loves best, as ever modest and courteous, true and loyal, a contrast to Kay. 
It is he who urges Ywain not to abandon for ease the chivalrous life. No 
lady in distress ever appealed to him in vain. 

Ivain is generally regarded as Crestien's masterpiece. It 
reaches the high-water mark of French romance, and is peculiarly 
attractive by reason of the psychological discussions intro- 
duced. The English translation is tolerably close, but reveals 
the hand of an independent writer. In condensing his original 
(his work is about 2800 lines shorter) the English poet has 
betrayed a nature unlike that of the courtly Crestien. Though 



232 THE CYCLE OF SIR GAWAIN chap. 

less sophisticated and elegant, he is more straightforward. We 
get the impression of a skilful poet, strong and sincere, distinctly 
English in sympathies and religious in spirit. 

Ywain, like Gawain, was a primitive hero of Arthurian 
romance, and like him was exalted by the chroniclers as an 
historical personage. Geoffrey implies that many tales of Ywain 
(Eventus) were current in his time ; and he figures prominently in 
the Mabtnogion, especially in the picturesque Dream of Rhonabwy. 
A short rhymed chronicle of Edward II. 's time exalts Ywain alone 
among Arthur's knights. Pers de Langtoft was also familiar 
with adventures ascribed to him. Robert of Brunne informs us 
that when Arthur was in France, Ywain opposed Modred's 
treasonable practices. And finally, Sir Thomas Gray, in his 
Scalacronica, states that it was he who killed Modred, and that 
he afterwards accompanied the King to Avalon. Elsewhere he 
is mentioned with Arthur and Gawain as resident in fairyland, 
and this for equally good romantic cause. 

To Avalon, Layamon tells us, Arthur was carried to have his 
wounds healed by "Argante, an elf most beautiful," or Morgain 
the Fay. This divine being, the Irish war-goddess, the Morrigan, 
provided with new fairy attributes, preeminently the Fairy Queen 
of Arthurian romance, was also represented as the mistress of the 
Carlovingian hero Ogier the Dane, who likewise visited her in the 
Otherworld. With her was also associated in late story the hero 
Gerine. One is tempted to find these two names preserved in the 
title of a late but charming Scottish poem, Egerand Grine {Grim), 
which at bottom seems to be a story of the Yzvain type, though 
amalgamated with other, particularly Scandinavian traditions, so 
that the fundamental situation is obscured, the names of the 
titular heroes even changing to Egace (Egils) and Grim within the 
poem itself. 

Eger, hearing of a " venturous knight " who keeps " a forbidden country," 
rides thither in search of adventure. He crosses by strange passages a 
mysterious river, is speedily attacked by Sir Graysteel, a gigantic Red Kniyht 
from the splendid castle near by, and suffers ill at his hands. He returns 



ROMANCE 233 



home afflicted and tells of his adventure. His companion, Grim, determines 
to try his luck, and rides three days through the wilderness to the land 
kept by the hostile knight. He succeeds where his companion failed, is 
well received by Dame Loosepaine, the beautiful lady of the land, through 
whose efforts his wounds are miraculously healed, and who finally agrees 
to wed him, despite the fact that she is even then mourning her previous 
husband's death. The marriage is celebrated with much minstrelsy and 
mirth. 

We cannot delay now to discuss the diverse elements of the 
story. Evidently the chief intention of the author was to exalt 
the devotion to each other of the sworn brothers Eger and Grim, 
whom he imagined like Amis and Amiloun, famous, we shall see, 
for their friendship. Though the poem is a strange combination, 
it is nevertheless singularly attractive, and worthy of the great 
popularity it enjoyed in Scotland. The fight of Grim with Gray- 
steel seems to have interested mediaeval readers most; we find 
most pleasant the scenes in the castle of the forbidden land, the 
Otherworld dwelling of the fay Loosepaine, which are delicately 
conceived and presented. 

Before turning away from a consideration of the English 
romances dealing with Gawain and others particularly of his 
fellowship, it is worth while to repeat that this noble warrior was 
a peculiar favourite in England — the type of man, it appears, that 
Englishmen in the Middle Ages most admired, from whom they 
chose to take example. There is hardly an English chronicler 
but testifies to Gawain's fame. Layamon praises him as "the 
truest man on earth." Robert of Gloucester calls him " the flower 
of courtesy." Robert of Brunne remarks that " mickle honour of 
him ever men say." Gradually, it is evident, he lost in the minds 
of the people his fabulous character and became like ordinary 
men, but nobler. Holinshed regarded him simply as " a faithful 
gentleman, preeminent for his honour and loyal truth." Finally, 
in a late but valuable chap-book on his Singular Adventures at a 
fairy castle, he is represented as living " towards the latter end of 
the reign of Henry VIIL," and is described as " a man of some 
fortune and considerable curiosity, fond of enterprise, and insatiate 



234 THE CYCLE OF SIR LANCELOT chap. 

of knowledge, [who] travelled through the northern counties of 
England." His adventures at the fairy castle, we learn, were at 
that time " extant among the family writings, and still recorded 
by his posterity" — verily, a far fetch from the condition of one 
who in primitive myth rode a magic horse, Gringalet, wielded the 
magic sword Excalibur, waxed in strength till noonday, and waned 
steadily thereafter till dark— a prince of the Otherworld ! 



The Cycle of Sir Lancelot 

The legend of Lancelot, as we have it, is less primitive than 
those of Tristram, Gawain, Perceval, and Ywain. Before 1 1 64, 
however, there were so many tales current in France about 
Lancelot that Crestien then mentioned him in Erec as one of the 
three most famous heroes of the Round Table; and before n 73 
(the date of Ivairi) he wrote a long poem on one episode of his 
career. Just where Crestien got his material for this work we 
are not certain ; but it has been recently made probable that he 
had before him an elaborate French romance concerning the hero, 
which is preserved in a German redaction. That this was written, 
moreover, was only a chance. 

In February 11 94, an Anglo-Norman knight, Hugh de Morville 
(who has been incorrectly identified with one of the four murderers 
of Thomas a Becket in 11 70), was sent to Vienna as a hostage 
for the release of Richard I., who had for a year been detained as 
a prisoner by Leopold, Duke of Austria. He and his fellows 
were given leave to return home after the death of Leopold at the 
end of the same year. To while away the time, we are informed, 
he took with him a favourite book, the lost romance of Lancelot. 
By good fortune, this fell into the hands of a German poet, Ulrich 
von Zatzikhoven, who translated it in 9444 lines of fluent verse. 
From the evidence his poem affords, we can see that the original 
was a biographical romance of considerable length, which related 
the adventures of the hero from his birth to his marriage. That 
it was written in England, one cannot assert ; but, at all events, it 



ROMANCE 235 



was in circulation there, and highly esteemed by the nobility, 
during the twelfth century. 

There is nothing to show, however, that Lancelot ever became 
a really popular hero in England. He was never at any time the 
delight of the whole folk, as Gawain was. We have no account 
of his doings in English that is not apparently based on some 
form or other of the bewildering prose romance that grew up in 
the thirteenth century, and immediately won enormous favour. 
This, no doubt, was the " book " that Chaucer informs us women 
in his time held " in full great reverence " — one of the Continental 
productions to which Robert of Brunne referred in 1338 : 

These great books, so fair language, 

Written and spoken of France's usage, 

That never were written through Englishmen. 

For Robert asserts that even in his time his countrymen had 
few prose books about Arthur's " noble deeds of honour " in com- 
parison with the large number in foreign tongues. In truth, there 
'did then exist abroad vast romances lauding Lancelot. In the 
thirteenth century was written a Dutch poem concerning him, 
only fragmentarily preserved, and yet over 47,000 lines long. 
And the French prose romance was reproduced in German, 
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. It was a prose Lancelot from 
which Dante, in a familiar and beloved passage, represents Paolo 
and Francesca as "reading for delight how love constrained" the 
hero. " Many times," says Francesca in hell, " that reading 
urged our eyes, and took the colour from our faces." 

The prose Lancelot dealt with the later history of King Arthur. 
In its vulgate form it consisted of several branches, first the 
Lancelot proper, dealing not only with the life and adventures of 
the hero himself, but including also those of Gawain, Agravain, 
and other knights ; then the Quest of the Holy Grail ; and finally 
the Death of Arthur. The compiler was familiar with Crestien's 
poem, and used it as the basis of that part of his work which deals 
with the capture of Guinevere. But he had access to other stories 



236 THE CYCLE OF SIR LANCELOT chap. 

about Lancelot, and inserted a vast deal of extraneous matter 
unconnected with him. The whole is sometimes appropriately 
called the Livre d'Artns, a name which would have been much 
more suitable to Malory's composition than that of the Morte 
Darthur, which the writer, or Caxton,- gave it. 

Two features of Lancelot's history will always remain parti 7 
cularly conspicuous — his enfa?ices and his relations with Guinevere. 
There were many heroes of the Perceval type, brought up in 
solitude by mortal mothers, who early won renown ; but Lancelot 
owed his training to a supernatural lady, who, with special affec- 
tion, prepared him in her own country for a distinguished career. 
The Lady of the Lake was a beneficent fay, who chose to educate 
a mortal youth on whom she laid her love, and who watched over 
her favourite throughout his life with careful solicitude. In respect 
to his education, he thus stands apart from other youthful heroes, 
except perhaps The Fair Unknown, who appears in some versions 
as enjoying a similar honour, and in various ways duplicates 
Lancelot's life. 

Lancelot, however, is chiefly remembered as the lover of 
Guinevere, whom he served ever with unwavering devotion, to 
the final ruin of the court. The chief incident of their amour is 
the queen's rescue by her lover from the power of Meleagant (cf. 
Malory, xix.), who has carried her off to " the land from which no 
stranger returns " — that is, the Otherworld, the abode of the dead. 
There are several parallels to this adventure in Celtic story, and 
perhaps originally it was not Lancelot who brought it to an end. 
Yet it was definitely attached to him in French romance, and he 
became famous largely by reason of the part therein that he was 
given to play. This adventure is the central incident of Crestien's 
Conte de la Charette. 

A stranger knight one festival May-day rides up to Arthur's court, salutes 
the King while he is still at table, and demands a boon, which, like that of the 
Irish knight in Tristan, is granted before it is heard. The knight declares 
that he holds many of the ladies of Arthur's land prisoners in his domain, and 
that he will free them all if there is any one of the King's followers who can 



ROMANCE 237 



overthrow him in single combat. If the trial is accepted and he wins, he shall 
have the Queen and his opponent to take away with him to captivity. The 
petulant Kay demands a chance to try the fight, and the King agrees. But in 
a neighbouring wood, where the contest takes place privately, Kay is badly 
beaten, and he and the Queen are carried off. Lancelot and Gawain arrive on 
the scene too late to prevent the disaster, but set out in pursuit. At a cross- 
roads they take separate paths. Lancelot, however, soon meets misfortune, for 
his horse breaks a leg, and he must needs trudge on wearily in heavy armour. 
A little dwarf in a cart overtakes him and offers him a ride. Lancelot wavers, 
because to ride in such a vehicle is derogatory to his dignity ; but the thought 
of Guinevere's danger impels him even to this ignominious act. His decision, 
however, brings him speedy chagrin. Gawain, whom he presently meets 
again, rebukes him for his indecorous position ; the inmates of the castle at 
which they soon arrive treat him patronisingly ; people along the road jeer at 
him ; and finally, when, after various adventures, in which he shows himself 
always a faithful and superb knight, he comes to the castle whither the Queen 
has been taken, and rescues her from the power of her captor, he receives only 
a sneer for his pains ; for Guinevere, like, every one else in the land apparently, 
has heard of her lover's dishonour and deems him now unworthy of her. 
Lancelot, bewildered, does not stop to justify himself, or to narrate the beguile- 
ments and blunders of his journey, but rushes away disconsolate to the woods. 
When after a few days he returns repentant, he finds that Meleagant has 
locked up his mistress again. He seeks her prison -chamber, effects an 
entrance, is granted forgiveness, spends hours of joy with her, and departs 
unobserved. The next day he meets Meleagant, overthrows him, and makes 
him promise to appear at Arthur's court a twelvemonth later. He departs 
with the Queen, Kay, and the prisoners, and journeys homeward, meeting 
Gawain by the way. Lancelot, however, does not reach Cardigan with the 
rest. He yields to the supplication of one of Meleagant's disguised sub- 
ordinates, separates himself from the party, to free, as he supposes, a distressed 
"lady, falls into an ambush, and is imprisoned. All at court, being very fearful 
because of his delayed arrival, seek news of him everywhere, but in vain. At 
last they proclaim a tourney, the victor to have the fairest damsel of Arthur's 
court as his prize. By good chance, the lady who is Lancelot's custodian 
while this- is taking place is minded to free him for a week, and the hero, 
giving a pledge to return, makes for the tourney in disguise. He is every- 
where victorious, to the great astonishment of all. Guinevere, however, sus- 
pects him of being her lover, and sends word to him to allow himself to be 
beaten. When he thereupon meekly accepts his opponent's blows, she with- 
draws her order, and he puts them all to shame. He then returns secretly to 
his sorry dungeon. There he pines until the end of the twelvemonth is at 
hand, when Meleagant appears at Cardigan and again boastfully demands the 



*— — — ^— — 



23$ THE CYCLE OF SIR LANCELOT 



Queen, feeling sure of winning with Lancelot absent. But he is deceived. 
The hero, by the aid of his fairy guardian, having been freed, restored to 
vigour, and equipped with good armour, suddenly appears, challenges and 
slays Meleagant, and is rewarded by the Queen's renewed favour. 

Lancelot here appears as the burden -bearer of a theory. 
Crestien did not begin to write of him thus of his own accord. 
The subject was suggested by Marie de Champagne, who thought 
it would admirably serve to promote her favourite ideas of courtly 
love. The poet, however, entered into the plan with little heart, 
and the result was unsatisfactory. Wearying of his task, he 
handed it over to a friend (Godefroi de Lagny) to finish, and wrote 
of Ywain instead. Great is the contrast between the type of love 
presented in these two poems : the love of Provence contrasts 
markedly with the love of Wales. 

Even in early forms of the story of Tristram and Ysolt we 
get hints of the new conceptions of courtly love that were soon 
to pervade mediaeval romance. Thomas endeavoured "l'estorie 
embelir, Que as amanz deive plaisir." But on the whole there 
is little that is conventional in the hero's and heroine's relations ; 
their acts are not regulated by formal doctrines, nor are they 
the slaves of codified rules ; they are not conscious of the part 
they are playing, not always wondering whether they are faithful 
to what they profess. Tristram had not to be ever on the alert 
to consider the red-tape of love theory, to avoid incurring his 
lady's displeasure ; Ysolt never assumed towards him the attitude 
of captious disdain. She had, to be sure, her fits of jealousy 
and indignation — as, for example, when she learns indirectly 
of her lover's second marriage, or i'later when Tristram flees 
from his foes and leaves her in tneir power — but these are 
only realistic touches, which show her to be a human being, 
a woman of passionate and impulsive nature. It is in Lancelot 
that we have the first courtly lover of British romance, and 
Guinevere is the first to pursue a well-regulated attachment. 

In Le Morte Arthur, a pleasing poem (in eight- line ballad- 
like stanzas, with alternate rhymes) dating from the end of the 



V ROMANCE 239 

fourteenth century, the author begins by recounting the charming 
and pathetic tale of " the Maid of Ascolot," and her unrequited 
love for Lancelot, which Tennyson has so happily rewritten in 
the Idylls of the King. 

The poem tells also how Lancelot in disguise champions Guinevere when, 
because of an unjust accusation, she is condemned to be burned, and over- 
comes her fierce accuser, much to the relief of all at court, who fear she is 
guilty, and dare not risk their lives in her defence. Through this valiant 
deed the hero is restored to favour with Guinevere, who had previously sent 
him away in anger, and enjoys fully the satisfactions of love. Soon, how- 
ever, Agravain, Gawain's brother, accuses him to the King, and the lovers 
are entrapped together. Lancelot boldly defends himself against his 
opponents, slaying all but Modred, who escapes by flight. Accompanied 
by many followers, he makes his way to Joyous Garde, the castle the 
King has given him, and thither after a struggle later brings Guinevere, thus 
saving her from being burned for her guilt. Unfortunately, in this exploit 
he has been forced to slay Gawain's two brothers, and has incurred thereby 
his implacable hatred. Arthur besieges Joyous Garde unsuccessfully ; but 
finally, at the command of the Pope, Lancelot yields back Guinevere, 
whom the King agrees to pardon. Lancelot withdraws to his Continental 
dominions, desiring peace ; but Arthur, urged on by the revengeful Gawain, 
follows after to continue the strife. While thus engaged, he hears of 
Modred's treachery, and returns to defend his queen and throne. 

The final scenes of the poem we shall discuss presently in 
another section dealing with Arthur's death. The likeness of 
this narrative to Malory's is due to their having had a common 
French prose source. 

The only other native poem on Lancelot is the Scottish 
Lancelot of the Laik, an incomplete and insignificant production 
in heroic couplets of the late fifteenth century. The prologue 
shows that the author was under the influence of the Court 
of Love ideas, then beginning to wane. He represents himself 
as falling asleep one April morning in a beautiful garden, where- 
upon the God of Love appears to him in a vision, reproves 
him for his futile complaining, and bids him compose a treatise 
"of love, or arms, or some other thing." When he wakes, he 
naturally enough chooses to narrate of Lancelot in love — how, 






2 4 THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL chap. 

during the wars between Arthur and Galiot, he achieves wonders 
by the Queen's inspiration. This served the poet as a means of 
evincing his own devotion to his lady. In addition, he seized 
the opportunity, afforded by some hints in his original, for a 
tedious discourse on the duties of kings, in which we seem to 
have allusions to abuses in Scotland during the reigns of 
James III. and James IV. Each " book " has a lyrical prelude. 

It was Malory, however, who made Lancelot the ideal knight 
in modern English eyes. As portrayed by him, Lancelot is 
assuredly a hero whom our hearts "give greatly unto." We 
accept as just Sir Hector's eulogy : 

Ah, Lancelot, he said, thou wert head of all Christian knights ; and 
now, I daresay, said Sir Hector, thou Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, that thou 
wert never matched of earthly knight's hand ; and thou wert the courtliest 
knight that ever bare shield ; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover 
that ever bestrode horse ; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that 
ever loved woman ; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with 
sword ; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of 
knights ; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate 
in hall among ladies ; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe 
that ever put spear in the rest. 

No wonder there accompanied his death " weeping and 
dolour out of measure." Lancelot was, in Tennyson's words, 

A princely knight 
Whose blended life brought weal and woe 
Unto his king. 



The Quest of the Holy Grail 

A consideration of the legends of Perceval and Lancelot 
leads us naturally to the history of the Holy Grail ; for Perceval 
was formerly the knight who achieved the Quest, while Lancelot 
later was represented as the father of Galahad, who usurped 
Perceval's place. 

The importance of the Grail legend to students of English 



ROMANCE 241 



literature does not consist in the number of versions preserved 
in the English language — for, apart from Malory, they are almost 
confined to a few accounts of the life of Joseph of Arimathea — 
but rather in the circumstances of the legend's growth and 
development in Britain. The problem of its history is too 
complicated ever to admit of a final solution ; but the plausible 
view is now held by competent scholars that the various parts 
were first welded together in Britain, and that in its later 
transformation and perpetuation much is due to the stimulus 
of an English king, Henry II. At all events, it is undeniable 
that what is known as the " Early History," telling of Joseph 
of Arimathea,/ is at bottom a legend of the conversion of Britain, 
that the chief scenes of the story throughout are in Britain, 
that the characters belong peculiarly to British story, and that 
certain of the best versions of the Quest were fashioned to exalt 
the English dynasty of Angevin kings. Through the stories 
of the Grail, the land of Britain was glorified as the first seat 
of the Church of Christ, and the abiding-place for ages of most 
precious relics of His cross and passion. By virtue of this 
legend Glastonbury Abbey became a shrine of British glory. 

To most English-speaking people knowledge of the Grail 
is limited to information drawn from the Morte Darthur; but 
Malory's account is simply an abridgment, often contradictory 
and obscure, of a French prose romance which was itself very 
far from the original. Three hundred years before Malory, the 
legend had been elaborated at great length and with much 
skill in Old French poems which (in the original, or in transla- 
tion) remain to this day its purest embodiment. These works 
of the twelfth century, in their turn, are based on material that 
was ancient at that time, primitive heathen myth, universal 
folklore, and Christian legend. These various elements were 
gathered together, many separate pieces, into an organised whole. 
The structure was continuously modified; new architects over 
and over again fashioned it anew; and the process still goes 
on under our very eyes. 

R 



242 THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL cha£. 

The first achiever of the Grail was not Galahad, but Perceval, 
some of whose deeds we have seen recorded in an English poem 
which contains no mention of the sacred chalice. Other exploits of 
his may be found in the Welsh tale of Peredur in the Mabinogion. 
A much more extensive narrative of his career, based, the poet 
tells us, on a book given him by the Crusader Count Philip of 
Flanders, was begun by Crestien, but left unfinished by him at 
his death, about 1189. Crestien wrote nearly 10,000 lines, but 
these are almost wholly occupied with the ordinary material of 
romance — adventures of all sorts, in which the Grail is seldom 
referred to, let alone explained. The episodes are such as appear 
constantly in the matter of Britain, and the general idea of the 
quest of a grail (Lat. gradalis, dish), or magic vessel of wonderful 
power, is likewise paralleled in Celtic mythic tales. These 
episodes are united by a slender bond. The winning of the 
Grail, and the unspelling of the castle where it is guarded, are 
no more intimately connected with the rest than the culminating 
adventure of any romantic hero with the others he performs ; no 
more, for example, than the rescue by The Fair Unknown of 
the lady in serpent shape whom two magicians kept in bespelled 
Snowdon. In each case, the simple, untutored hero, reared in 
solitude, by virtue of a favoured lineage and a marvellous nature 
successfully performs various undertakings before he is brought 
face to face with one of greater significance, with whose final 
accomplishment — the rescue of a castle and a district from a 
spell — he seems to achieve his foreordained mission, and to 
satisfy the hopes of those who have guided him throughout his 
whole career. 

Crestien gives us but slight information about the Grail, and 
few indications of how his story was to terminate. The master's 
work, however, found several continuators, whose conceptions, 
though on the whole they followed the same lines, were different 
in certain respects not only from his but from one another's. 
Through their efforts, within fifty or sixty years after Crestien's 
death, the Conte del Graal had become about 60,000 lines long. 



ROMANCE 243 



Perceval is throughout the chief hero, but the deeds of Gawain 
are almost as important to the narrators, and the work is not 
unlike a secular romance of the ordinary Arthurian type. 

The original object of the quest, the heathen Celtic talisman, 
a grail with food-producing power and unspelling might, had, 
earlier than in Crestien, become identified with a sacred 
Christian relic, the Holy Grail, the dish in which Joseph of 
Arimathea was supposed to have caught the blood that flowed 
from the body of our Lord after He had been pierced by Longinus' 
spear ; and this idea soon brought about a complete transforma- 
tion of the tale. The better to explain how this precious relic 
got to Britain, a long story, in which the life of Joseph of 
Arimathea was outlined, was prefixed to the narrative of Per- 
ceval. Material for this, probably in Latin, was no doubt 
readily accessible. Legends of the conversion of Britain by 
Joseph had grown up in Britain independently, and were of 
such a nature as to be easily combined with the tale of British 
heroes. 

It was in the hands of an Anglo-Norman knight, Robert de 
Boron, that the chivalrous, secular romance of Perceval seems 
first to have been adequately united in literary treatment with the 
pious ecclesiastical legend of Joseph. In the last quarter of the 
twelfth century, he planned and, at least in part, composed a 
trilogy of romances, the first of which dealt with Joseph of 
Arimathea, the second with Merlin, and the third was to deal 
with Perceval. The poet's most novel idea was that of intro- 
ducing " the fiend-born necromancer " Merlin, whom he repre- 
sented as fashioning the celebrated Round Table in the similitude 
of a table on which Joseph, while a missionary in the East, was 
accustomed to display the Grail for the comfort and sustenance 
of his followers. Robert's plan was apparently to unite all the 
divergent traditions into an inclusive Grail cycle, and this in a 
measure he accomplished. But he was not skilful enough to 
make his work definitive : it influenced others, but by them was 
at the same time transformed. Robert, it will be observed, was 



244 THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL chap. 

a knight, not a monk, not a member of any religious order. He 
was a pious man of simple faith, but no theologian. Indeed, 
almost the whole developed legend of the Grail Quest seems to 
have been the work of laymen. The Church uttered neither 
praise nor blame. The legend grew of itself, at once secular and 
religious, teaching no important doctrine, but subversive of none, 
tending to righteousness and respect for Holy Church, but not 
scholastic or dogmatic in tone. The Church let it alone. 

Crestien and Robert, it is clear, were but two of many who 
in the half-century about 1200 were busy elaborating the Grail 
stories, which, once started, filled the minds of men with extra- 
ordinary swiftness. An immense body of Grail literature was 
then produced, not only in Latin and French, but also in other 
languages of Europe. One of these foreign productions, the 
German Parzival, merits particular consideration, because it 
is a noble poem in itself, because it attests the existence of a 
similar work in its French original, and because that original 
was evidently written by a Continental supporter of the house of 
Anjou, who had political aims in its production. Its author, 
Wolfram von Eschenbach (f c. 1220), was the greatest writer of 
mediaeval Germany ; the greatest writer of the Middle Ages, it is 
claimed, before Dante. Wolfram also was a layman, a man of 
little learning, but a broad-minded, sympathetic man and a 
poet of unusual power. This one can safely say, whatever view 
one may hold with regard to his sources. He tells us that he 
based his work on a French poem by a Provencal Guyot (Kyot). 
Scepticism has long reigned regarding this person, of whom and 
of whose poem all other trace has disappeared ; but scholars are 
now disposed to accept Wolfram's statement, confirmed as it is 
by internal evidence, and to transfer much of the praise usually 
accorded to Wolfram to Guyot. The latter knew Crestien, but 
deprecated his work. He viewed his material in a way quite 
unlike that of his great rival. He wrote to please the Angevins 
at the time of their ascendency, and connected the English royal 
house with the lineage of Perceval, to flatter its pride. Guyot 



ROMANCE 245 



was a far more tolerant and deeply religious person than Crestien. 
He had lived in the East, and was full of the Crusading spirit. 
He believed in the independent dignity of the order of Knights 
Templars, in whose image he portrays the Grail knights. The 
early history of Joseph he neglects, but in compensation he adds 
the story of Lohengrin, whom he represents as the son of Parzival, 
and introduces Prester John. 

With the sudden fall of the Angevin dynasty, a work so 
decidedly partisan to them would find little favour in France, 
and therefore be neglected and disappear. Fortunately, before 
this, it fell into the German poet's hands, and formed the basis 
of that admirable work which in our time inspired Wagner to 
what some regard as his greatest achievement. 

Robert de Boron's poems and other accessible Grail matter 
were in the thirteenth century elaborated in prose. This transi- 
tion to prose is accompanied by two fundamental changes — the 
exaltation of the previously insignificant Galahad to the role of 
Grail hero and the complete sway of Christian symbolism. 
With Galahad the ideal of asceticism enters the romance. The 
human, loving Perceval is relegated to second place in the 
Quest, and the noble Gawain, thought too worldly, must needs 
be held up as a dreadful example. 

The tangle of Grail material that grew up in the thirteenth 
century is extremely bewildering. Everything that had any 
bearing on the subject, or could in any way be connected with 
it, was dragged in. The different versions are legion. Hardly 
two of the manuscripts are alike. Above the thicket of versions 
and redactions one commanding figure rises, one who is always 
associated with the late development of the cycle, namely, Walter 
Map, to whom is ascribed the composition of what is known as 
the Qiieste del St. Graal, part of the enormous Grand St. Graal, 
which tells the whole story. 

Map probably had no connection with the cycle ; and his 
name is kept here chiefly for convenience. But if it be true, as 
the mediaeval scribe said, that "Walter Map made the book for 



246 THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL chap. 

the love of his lord, King Henry, who had the story translated 
from Latin into French," we owe both the king and his counsellor 
a debt of gratitude. Henry II. had much to gain by identifying 
himself and his family with this British legend, for he thus 
influenced the Celtic races of his dominion in his favour, and he 
sought means to oppose what he thought to be the overweening 
presumption of the Roman Church. He undertook to rebuild 
the Abbey of Glastonbury on a magnificent scale ; and it was 
doubtless no accident that in 1191 the tombs of Arthur and 
Guinevere were discovered there, to the discomfiture of the 
Welsh, who believed that Arthur was to return. The tales of 
Joseph in Britain were not cherished by the Popes. 

Map is particularly connected with the Lancelot branch of 
the Grail cycle. This branch was a late-comer into the great 
romance, and it required a good many subtle shifts to make it 
fit the rest. At first Galahad was represented as the direct 
descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, begotten in Britain by com- 
mand of God. Lancelot was simply his godfather when he was 
dubbed at Arthur's court. To enhance the reputation of both, 
this connection was made more intimate, and Lancelot was repre- 
sented as the real father of the saintly youth, the offspring of a 
guilty love for the daughter of the Grail- King Pelles. The 
Lancelot stories were permeated with an atmosphere of secular 
gallantry totally at variance with the monastic conceptions of the 
purely Grail cycle. But this was a matter of small account to 
the redactor. He told with all its wanton charm the love-story 
of Lancelot and Guinevere, but he atoned for this by attributing 
to it the final catastrophe of the Round Table, making it intervene 
between the achieving of the Quest and the Death of Arthur. 

The Grail-Lancelot cycle having become a gigantic and 
unwieldy body of romance, the need of shortening was soon 
apparent, and various contractions appeared even as early as the 
thirteenth century. It was one of these that Malory still further 
reduced to form Books xiii. to xvii. of the Morte Darthur. 
Malory's account deals particularly with the Quest. A little 



ROMANCE 247 



before his time, about 1450, the early history of the Grand St. 
Graal was laboriously turned into English couplets by one Henry 
Lovelich, a London skinner. The poem, which is preserved in a 
unique and fragmentary manuscript, contains almost 24,000 lines, 
and yet the author does not get beyond the conversion of Britain. 

In the first quarter of the sixteenth century several Lives of 
Joseph of Arimathea were printed in England. But the most 
valuable English version of the Joseph legend is that written at 
the time of the alliterative revival about the middle of the four- 
teenth century. Only about 700 lines are now preserved in a 
unique manuscript, and the author is unknown. The poem deals 
with the incidents of Joseph's life at Sarras, relying for informa- 
tion on the Grand St. Graal. It is interesting not because of 
the originality of its material, or the skill of the author's presenta- 
tion, but as evidence of the appreciation by a patriotic English 
poet of a legend that was thought to honour his native land. 

It would be pleasant to quote passages from Malory in which 
are nobly pictured impressive scenes in the history of the Quest 
(such, for example, as the appearance of Galahad at court, his 
seating himself in the Siege Perilous, the vision of the Grail, the 
heroic avowing of the knights, and their solemn procession out- 
ward from Camelot) — but there is no need. To every reader the 
Morte Darthttr is, or should be, a familiar book. 

If we review the development of the Grail cycle, we see how 
bewilderingly in so short a time a secular romance of adventure 
was altered into an elaborate Christian allegory. The reason for 
the final transformation is apparent : it lies in the change of the 
clerical attitude towards the principles of chivalry and their 
expression in the romances. We recall Roger Ascham's" severe 
condemnation of the Arthurian romances on the ground of their 
immorality. We recall how Tennyson characterises them as 

Touch'd by the adulterous finger of a time 
That hover'd betwixt war and wantonness. 

And we can but admit that there is some reason in these reproaches. 



THE CYCLE OF MERLIN 



The story of Tristram and Ysolt is the apotheosis of illicit love ; 
that of Lancelot and Guinevere the glorification of infidelity in 
marriage ; even Arthur, the governing spirit of the whole fellow- 
ship of the Round Table, was accused of incest. Outwardly, of 
course, the romances were highly moral. In the course of time 
the pagan British tales had been made over to suit Christian 
readers ; the ancient warriors had come to be presented as pious 
adherents of the Church, who went regularly to mass, appealed 
to God and the Virgin in time of need, and were saved from 
danger by divine interposition. All this, however, was superficial. 
Beneath the veneer of ecclesiastical observance lurked concep- 
tions of life that were all too clearly opposed to the precepts of 
Christianity. Yet these tales of Britain were fascinating to the 
clergy as well as to laymen, and no open war was ever waged 
against them. " Li conte de Bretaigne sont si vain et plaisant," 
said Jean Bodel, and in + their vanity and pleasantness lay the 
secret of their unopposed success. But pious people at last grew 
alarmed at their popularity, thinking that they drew the minds of 
men away from the contemplation of holy writ and encouraged 
worldliness, and they tried to alter them to serve a righteous end : 
in the story of the Holy Grail they made the knights of King 
Arthur the embodiment of Christian ideals, Christian pilgrims 
struggling to reach " the spiritual city." Thus the " vain " tales 
were finally transformed, and given deep religious significance. 
The Grail-Quest remains still a symbol of the highest human 
endeavour. 

The Cycle of Merlin 

The consideration of Merlin conducts us back from the 
romantic adventures of Arthur's knights, based on popular story 
and legend, to the events of pseudo- history as outlined by 
Geoffrey, from the narrative of Arthur's closing years to that of 
his youth. The Merlin legend is a bewildering one, but in its 
general development not too difficult to trace. 

Among the Welsh, before the flourishing of romance, Merlin 



ROMANCE 249 



(Myrrdhin) had won repute as a bard and a prophet, probably 
also as a beguiled lover. By Geoffrey he was perhaps first con- 
nected with Arthur, and exalted as an enchanter. Identifying 
the Welsh Myrrdhin with the Ambrosius of Nennius, and borrow- 
ing incidents from the latter, and from elsewhere, he evolved a 
new character. 

Geoffrey represents Vortiger as in great perplexity because of 
his inability to lay solid foundation for a strong tower he is 
desirous to build. Whatever the builders do one day, the earth 
swallows up the next, so as to leave no trace of their work. 
Magicians inform him that if he sprinkles the stones and cement 
with the blood of a youth who never had a father, the foundations 
will become firm. Messengers find at Caermarthen a boy whose 
birth is mysterious : his mother has conceived him in a nunnery, 
how she knows not. The messengers decide that he has been 
begotten by an incubus, and is therefore fitted for the desired 
sacrifice. But the boy so confounds them by his extraordinary 
wisdom that they think him divinely inspired. They conduct 
him to the King, to whom he reveals the cause of the tower's 
instability, and, to the bewilderment of all, foretells strange 
happenings to come. 

Merlin as an enchanter plays a conspicuous part in Uter's 
deception of Ygerna, and in the removal of the rocks from Ireland 
to build the Giant's Dance. For these the "historian" got his 
suggestion in popular tales. Previous Celtic enchanters, like 
Manannan and Mongan, gave him hints that he utilised for his 
purpose. Thanks to the fame of Geoffrey's book, the exploits of 
Merlin's prototypes were gradually transferred to him, and he 
came to stand as the preeminent representative of Celtic magic. 

Following the outline of the Historia, and with the aid of 
intermediate narratives, Robert de Boron managed to give a 
consecutive account of the life of this extraordinary figure. The 
scholastic explanation of Merlin's mysterious birth he replaces by 
the ecclesiastical one of demonic origin, and in his hands Merlin 
becomes the offspring of the devil, who through him hopes to 



2So THE CYCLE OF MERLIN chap. 

subvert mankind. The plan of the demons is, however, circum- 
vented through the child's immediate christening by the holy 
man, Blaise, who has had the boy's mother in his care, and he 
becomes a force for good instead of for evil. Like all youths of 
similar supernatural origin (Sir Gowghter, for example), he is soon 
discovered to be " marvellously witted," preternaturally wise. 
When still a babe, he speaks words of comfort to his mother, and 
promises to shield her from harm. He is only eighteen months 
old when he defends her against an unjust accusation of adultery, 
and secures her release by convicting the judge's own mother of 
secret sin in his conception. Before he is five, he has exhibited 
his mysterious wisdom to the astonished Vortiger. Thereupon 
he becomes the chief counsellor of the king and his successors, 
whom he repeatedly enables to outwit their enemies. As the 
omniscient and omnipotent guardian of the young Arthur, he 
behaves like Odin to the hero Sigmund in the North. It is he 
who arranges the sword-test by which the supposed foster-child of 
Antor reveals himself of Uter's blood; he plans and helps to 
bring about the King's marriage with Guinevere, daughter of 
Leodegan, aiding him and his followers constantly by his know- 
ledge of shape-shifting and enchantment. 

Robert's poem became the basis of a long, and for the most 
part very monotonous, prose romance, in which the account of 
Arthur's wars with his rivals and Saxon foes is drearily prolonged 
to the time of Lancelot's birth, the work being apparently intended 
as an introduction to the romance of that hero. Despite its 
tediousness, this work was very popular in Europe, and was 
translated into several languages. A fourteenth -century version 
was turned into English, but so mechanically as to be insig- 
nificant. From some version of the French prose romance 
Malory "reduced" the interesting sections that make up his first 
four books, ennobling it by his fine phrasing. The splendid 
distinction of his style appears heightened when compared with 
that of his fellow, the servile translator of the whole, or, indeed, 
with the tiresome metrical version prepared about 1450 by the 



ROMANCE 251 



skinner Lovelich, whose trade seems to have occupied him too 
little. The writers of the fifteenth century (like Lydgate, for 
example) were surely long-winded enough ; but if the poet's merit 
were determined by his perseverance, Lovelich would even then 
have been entitled to fame. His version of the Grail legend, we 
recall, was some 24,000 lines long. His Merlin, though also un- 
finished, includes about 28,000. These works are in unique 
manuscripts. Who can tell how much else he wrote ? 

Long before, at the close of the thirteenth century, the 
developed French romance, in a form not yet quite determined, 
served an English poet of much greater power as material for 
an extensive work which he called Arthur and Merlin. Over 
1 o,ooo lines of this poem are preserved, and yet it is far from 
complete. It is written in couplets of four accents, which the 
author very deftly turns. Because of a general likeness in poetic 
treatment and in the nature of the material embodied, it is 
generally believed that this poem and King Alisaunder, of which 
we shall later treat, are the work of one individual, who wrote in 
Kent or thereabouts. Notable among the agreements in style 
between them is the frequent use of agreeable lyrical passages 
describing the seasons, or phases of outdoor life, as preludes to 
different sections of the story. Both poems abound in descriptions 
of battles, for which the author had an evident predilection. His 
spirited style and enthusiasm will not prevent a modern reader 
from finding them dull. The Carlovingian epic supplies such 
struggles a plenty : we pass them by in Arthurian romance. 

We linger more willingly over Merlin's amour. There is 
evidence in Geoffrey's (?) Vita Merlifii, that previously in Welsh 
tradition a story was told about Myrrdhin's love for a fay, with 
whom he perhaps lived for a time in the Otherworld, a story not 
unlike that of Ywain. This tradition, it may be, furnished a basis 
for the very widespread narrative of his relations with Niniane. 
The air-castle in which she imprisons him was of a kind familiar 
to every reader of British tales — an Otherworld creation, where a 
beautiful lady could keep a valiant knight enthralled, powerless to 



252 THE CYCLE OF MERLIN chap. 

pass out, submissive to her commands. The story is laden with 
the alluring mystery that gives the tone to Breton romance. 
Tennyson has treated it with originality and power. 

It was natural that in the Middle Ages Merlin should be con- 
fused with the enchanter Virgil. In an English version of the 
Seven Sages he takes Virgil's place ; and sometimes the two appear 
to have exchanged achievements. In the Middle English romance 
of Herod and Merlin we have a variant of the story of Vortiger's 
tower, the British king yielding his place to Herod. 

But Merlin the mage would probably never have won his 
permanent fame in Britain had he not been reputed also to be a 
prophet. His history appealed to the English forcibly because 
they believed that he had had (perha'ps still had) a local habita- 
tion in their own land, and was identified with the nation's history. 
When Geoffrey published the rhapsodic and indistinct utterances 
in his Prophecies, his contemporaries scrutinised them carefully. 
Finding that the predictions regarding past events had been 
exactly fulfilled, they naively concluded that those pertaining to 
the future would also come to pass. Indeed, men were slow to 
abandon the folly of trying to elucidate this imposture. As late 
as 1 64 1 Thomas Hey wood wrote a Life of Merlin, surnamed 
Ambrosius, his Prophecies and Predictions interpreted ; and their 
Truth made Good by our English Annals. Defoe tells us that 
the fortune-tellers and prophets who flourished at the time of the 
Great Plague in 1665 were wont to display the head of Merlin as 
a sign. His name has been constantly used by astrologers and 
modern prophets to promote the sale of,,their pamphlets. But 
perhaps Merlin's influence on actual events is most evident in the 
way his authority was used to keep alive the " British hope " among 
the Welsh. The monk of Malmesbury who wrote the Life of 
Edward III. remarks at the year 13 15 that, in consequence of a 
prophecy of Merlin's predicting the recovery of England by 
King Arthur, the Welsh raised frequent revolts. An historian 
lacks imagination who fails to recognise the importance of romantic 
sentiment in a national struggle for independence. 



ROMANCE 253 



The Death of Arthur 

A constant tendency is manifest in mediaeval England to 
add verisimilitude to Arthurian story, to transform romance into 
history. Vagueness in the characters' ancestry and remoteness of 
scene yielded to strict genealogical precision and definite local 
situation. Thus transformed, the ancient tales were gladly per- 
petuated, and served, the people thought, to establish national 
dignity. On the revival of English self- consciousness in the 
fourteenth century a new effort was made to exalt the early heroes 
of Britain, and the old alliteration seemed appropriate to patriotic 
poets for the recounting of their warlike deeds. 

Of the Middle English alliterative poems, one of the most 
interesting is the Morte Arthure (not to be confused with the 
work of the same title in stanzas, already referred to, which is 
chiefly concerned with Lancelot, though it necessarily therefore 
tells of the closing years of Arthur's life), a production probably of 
the north-west of England, in 4346 long lines without rhyme. In 
it occur allusions to historical events in 1327, when Edward II. 
was deposed and Edward III. nominated in his place by a 
Parliament held at Westminster. 

The author follows in the main the "historical" account of 
Arthur from the time he set out against Lucius to his final fight 
with Modred. He was not, however, confined to the various 
chronicles accessible to him, but utilised also material from 
developed romance. Lancelot and Ywain, for example, figure 
prominently in the story, by name at least, though they bear 
faint likeness to their portraits in French. Modred is one of 
the central characters, and not an out-and-out villain. He is 
loath to remain at home when Arthur goes abroad. When he 
sees Gawain dead, he bursts into tears, and praises him in irre- 
proachable words. In fact, the chief interest of the poem 
attaches to his final struggle with the King. 



254 THE DEATH OF ARTHUR chap. 

Arthur has crossed the Alps, and has been offered the crown of Rome by 
the Pope, when he dreams of Fortune, "a beautiful duchess," and her 
revolving wheel. At first he rejoices in her favour, but is later crushed by 
the wheel's weight. This dream, wise men explain to him, foretells his 
death. And when a pilgrim announces Modred's treasonable deeds, he at 
once returns. In a stirring, lifelike passage is described a sea fight near 
Southampton, in which Modred is overcome. Excellently are pictured the 
scenes of the ensuing conflicts between him and the King. In the final 
terrible struggle the splendid swords Clarent and Caliburn clash together in 
rivalry. The contest is mighty. But at last Modred falls vanquished. Not 
long, however, does the KJng survive. When he feels himself failing, he has 
himself borne to Glastonbury, "the Isle of Avalon" (!), and there, solemnly 
confessing his sins, departs this world, forgiving and forgiven. "The 
baronage of Britain, then, bishops and others, repair them to Glastonbury 
with rueful hearts, to bury there the bold king, and bring him to the earth, 
with all suitable worship and wealth. Strongly the bells they ring and 
requiems sing, masses and matins with mourning notes ; religious robed 
in their rich copes, pontiffs and prelates in precious weeds ; dukes and 
douzepeers in their dole-coats, countesses kneeling and clasping their hands, 
ladies languishing and downcast in face ; all were busked in black, brides- 
women and others, that appeared at the sepulchre, with falling tears ; was 
never so sorrowful a sight seen in their time ! Thus ends King Arthur, as 
authors allege, that was of Hector's blood, the King's son of Troy, and of 
Sir Priam, the prince praised on earth ; for thence brought the Britons all his 
bold elders into Britain the broad, as the Brut tells." 

. The author of this Morte Arthure was a thorough -going 
Englishman and a genuine poet. His simple, sturdy qualities 
had never been neutralised by foreign sophistications. None of 
the feebleness manifest in the degenerate romances of subservient 
minstrels appears in his vigorous lines. Here, on the contrary, is 
the power of originality, the charm of freshness. The author 
i evinces a sense of humour and a love of nature. We find in his 
poem attempts at characterisation surpassing those of the ordinary 
romancer. Reality is the poet's watchword, battle his boast. His 
part was to revivify and naturalise the "historical " narrative, and 
to . portray the personages in the light of his Saxon ideals. He 
wrote with much the same spirit as Layamon, with like energising 
power of imagination and picturesque phrase. 



ROMANCE 25s 



A curious treatment of the story of Arthur's closing years is 
found in a short Southern poem (642 lines, in couplets) of the 
second half of the fourteenth century, known only by the name of 
Arthur. It is an insertion in a Latin chronicle of the kings of 
Britain, the writer, in his enthusiasm for Arthur, feeling 
impelled to quit his dull Latin prose for a little, while he bade 
those of his readers that "loved honour," to hearken "of King 
Arthur and his labour." We are reminded of the poetic entries 
in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

The scenes inevitably first evoked in one's memory by the 
mention of Arthur's death are not, however, the would-be 
historical but the plainly mythical and romantic — the scenes that 
Tennyson has made familiar to all. These, with all their gleam 
and haze, were wonderfully described, ages before the Laureate's 
time, in Malory, in the earlier stanzaic Morte Arthure, and in the 
ultimate source of both, the romance of Lancelot in thirteenth- 
century French prose, some copy of which was used also by the 
alliterative poet. In Malory's version the story of Arthur's 
forthfaring is well known ; but it will not be amiss here to repeat 
part of that chapter which tells "How King Arthur commanded 
to cast his sword Excalibur in the water, and how he was 
delivered unto ladies in a barge." 

Arthur is at "a little chapel not far from the seaside," at the point of 
death, even as Gawain's spirit had warned him in a dream that it should be. Sir 
Lucan has just died, literally of a broken heart, trying to help to move him. 
Then Sir Bedivere wept for the death of his brother. " Leave this weeping 
and mourning," said King Arthur, "for all this will not avail me ; for wit thou 
well, and I might live myself, the death of Sir Lucan would grieve me 
evermore. But my time hieth fast," said King Arthur unto Sir Bedivere ; 
"therefore take thou Excalibur, my good sword, and go with it unto yonder 
water side, and, when thou comest there, I charge thee throw my sword into 
that water, and come again and tell me what thou shalt see there." "My 
lord," said Sir Bedivere, "your command shall be done, and lightly bring you 
word again." And so Sir Bedivere departed ; and by the way he beheld that 
noble sword where the pummel and the haft Were. all of precious stones, and 
then he said to himself, " If I throw this rich sword into the water, thereof 
shall never come ?ocd. b'it harm and loss." And then Sir Bedivere hid 



256 THE DEATH OF ARTHUR chap. 

Excalibur under a tree, and as soon as he might he came again unto King 
Arthur, and said he had been at the water, and had thrown the sword into 
the water. " What sawest thou there ? " said the King. " Sir," said he, "I 
saw nothing but waves and wind." " That is untruly said of thee," said King 
Arthur; " therefore go thou lightly and do my command, as thou art to me 
lief and dear; spare not, but throw it in." Then Sir Bedivere returned again, 
and took the sword in his hand ; and then he thought it sin and shame to 
throw away that noble sword. And so eft he hid the sword, and returned 
again and told to the King that he had been at the water and done his com- 
mand. " What saw ye there ? " said the King. " Sir," said he, " I saw nothing 
but the water wap and waves wan." " Ah, traitor untrue ! " said King Arthur, 
" now hast thou betrayed me twice. Who would have weened that thou that 
hast been unto me so lief and dear, and thou art named a noble knight, and 
wouidst betray me for the rich sword ? But now go again lightly, for thy long 
tarrying putteth me in great jeopardy of my life, for I have taken cold ; and 
but if thou dost not as I command thee, and if ever I may see thee, I shall slay 
thee with my own hands, for thou wouidst for my rich sword see me dead." 
Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up, 
and went to the water's side ; and there he bound the girdle about the hilt, 
and then he threw the sword into the^water as far as he might ; and there 
came an arm and a hand above the water, and met it and caught it, and so 
shook it thrice and brandished. 

And then the hand vanished away with the sword in the water. So Sir 
Bedivere came again to the" King, and told him what he had seen. " Alas ! " 
said the King, "help me from hence, for I dread me I have tarried over long." 
Then Sir Bedivere took King Arthur upon his back, and so went with him to 
the water's side. And when they were at the water's side, even fast by the 
bank hoved a little barge, with many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a 
queen, and they all had black hoods, and they wept and shrieked when they 
saw King Arthur. 

"Now put me into the barge," said the King;- and so he did softly; 
and there received him three queens with great mourning, and so these three 
queens sat them down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head. 
And then that queen said, " Ah ! dear brother, why have ye tarried so long 
from me ? Alas ! this wound on your head has taken over much cold." And 
so then they rowed from the land, and Sir Bedivere beheld all those ladies go 
from him. Then Sir Bedivere cried, " Ah ! my lord Arthur, what shall become 
of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies ? " 
"Comfort thyself," said King Arthur, "and do as well as thou mayest, for in 
me is no trust for to trust in ; for I will into the vale of Avilion for to heal 
me of my grievous wound ; and if thou never hear more of me, pray for my 
soul." But evermore the queens and ladies wept and shrieked that it was 



ROMANCE 257 



pity for to hear them. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the 
barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest ; and so he went all the 
night. 

The power of Arthurian romance is manifest in the use made 
of it so often for political purposes. Among Englishmen, we 
have seen, it served as a reason for glorifying themselves and 
patronising the French, while to the Welsh it was an inspiration 
in their prolonged struggle for independence. The Scotch in the 
fifteenth century likewise poured into it their bitterness against 
their foes across the border. • King Lot and Sir Modred are then, 
curiously enough, exalted by certain of their chroniclers as 
champions of Scottish rights. The Arthur so much vaunted of 
their opponents was in reality, they declared, but a sorry bastard, 
whose life was stained with perjury and crime. The virulent 
Hector Boece sneers at Arthur's revels in York, and cites the 
opinion that he was the first to celebrate Christmas with disgraceful 
orgies. He pays no heed to Arthur's brilliant achievements 
abroad. 

But the Matter of Britain is no longer a theme for discord, 
except perhaps among scholars holding different views of its 
perplexing growth. All nations now love to remember Arthur as 
the centre about whom revolved as noble a body of warriors as 
ever prince could boast. It is he, of whom we know so little that 
is true, who has become the chief figure of the greatest cycle of 
romance — romance embodying the highest ideals, and picturing 
the most polished manners, of the courtly society of the Middle 
Ages. Yet not only this. Mediaeval, of course, are the concep- 
tions that the lives of our ancient British knights reflect — but they 
are nevertheless powerful to-day. Though "the whole Round 
Table is dissolved," it remains now as ever "an image of the 
mighty world." 

Therefore, it seems to us, as to Caxton, that in its varying 
forms the Book of Arthur is " right necessary often to be read. 
For in it ye shall find the gracious, knightly, and virtuous wars of 
the most noble knights of the world, whereby they got praising 

s 



558 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

continual. Also it seemeth by the oft reading thereof ye shall 
greatly desire to accustom yourself in following those gracious 
knightly deeds — that is to say, to dread God, and love righteous- 
ness, faithfully and courageously to serve your sovereign prince. 
And the more that God hath given you the triumphal honour, the 
meeker ye ought to be, ever fearing the unstableness of this 
deceivable world." 



The Matter op England 

Our national epic, if we have any, is based upon British 
rather than Anglo-Saxon tradition. King Arthur occupies in the 
political history of England a position somewhat parallel to 
Charlemagne's in that of France : Arthur was not English, and 
Charlemagne was not French. Our Germanic forefathers did not 
have the same large supply of legendary fiction concerning Arthur 
that was accessible to their descendants after the Conquest, and 
could never have dreamed that a fabulous hero of their despised 
Welsh neighbours would come to be exalted to so high a place 
as Arthur was destined to fill. Before the coming of the Normans 
the rulers of England sang by preference the exploits of ancient 
Teutonic heroes, or those of men of their own near kin or type 
who had gained fame at home. NOr did the increasing currency 
of foreign fable cause the disappearance of this native tradition, 
though in many cases it brought about its transformation. 
Throughout the Middle Ages the stories of Saxon warriors were 
repeated with delight, especially among those whose blood-ties 
were strongest with the Germanic past. Yet not, we must bear 
in mind, among those alone; for Saxon tales were seized upon 
by British minstrels, French poets, and Latin chroniclers, and, as 
fate would have it, sometimes preserved by them alone. In at 
least one instance (Ilavetok) native saga was embodied in French 
in the likeness of a Breton lay.j in others {e.g. Horn, Aelof } 
IVa/def, Beves) it was rewritten in the style of the chansons tie 
geste\ sometimes (e.g. in Havelok, Gay of Warwick) it was rhymed 



ROMANCE 259 



in the usual octosyllabic couplets of romance; while several 
ancient sagas {e.g. the Vita Herewardi Saxonis) are extant only 
in Latin redactions or summaries. 

Thus the traditions generally termed native are preserved 
in a great variety of forms, many of them far from primitive. 
These, moreover, are very far apart in age ; and we must carefully 
distinguish the various versions from one another if we would 
estimate aright their real significance. In the hands of authors of 
different nationalities and epochs, the same substance received 
divergent impress, was moulded into shapes strangely unlike. 
It seemed almost necessary at first for a saga to assume the 
exterior semblance of French poetry in order to maintain its 
dignity ; so that thus, as it were, subtly, by devious devices, 
Continental conceptions were disseminated in England and 
inevitably affected national tendency : reading about their own 
heroes, Englishmen learned foreign ways. 

When the Saxons gained dominion in the land, they brought 
with them the tales they had been accustomed to hear at home, 
some at least of which were in literary form. Unfortunately, most 
of these have disappeared even in their early alliterative dress, and 
none at all are preserved in mediaeval redactions. A mythical 
story of the Germanic hero Wade, son of the famous Wayland the 
Smith, and of his magic boat, is several times referred to by 
Chaucer 'and other Middle English writers, but we are now 
ignorant of its substance, despite the recent discovery of the scrap 
of an old poem on the subject. In truth, most of the primitive 
traditions of the Saxons seem to have been forgotten very early 
by cultivated people. Their place was taken by a new body of saga 
of native insular growth, which has for us, of course, far greater 
interest than any echoes of Teutonic myth. We may consider 
them as we will, as fact plus fable, or fable plus fact : the sum is 
the same. A few of these narratives are in the main perhaps 
accurate records of historical events, only embellished by legend- 
ary ornament ; others are at bottom simply folk-tales localised 
and coloured in the land of their adoption. Let us for con- 



260 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

venience accept Dr. Johnson's dictum that " all history so far as 
it is not supported by contemporary evidence is romance." 

In an Anglo-Norman romance, Waldef (A.S. Walfeof), not 
yet published, the author explicitly states that the original of his 
poem was much loved by the English, high and low, by princes, 
dukes, and kings, up to the Norman Conquest, and that then it 
was translated into French, like the stories of Tristram and Aelof. 
The Anglo-Saxon original has now quite disappeared, but it was 
known to a fifteenth-century monk, John Bramis of Thetford, who 
used it, so he says, to finish his Latin prose- translation of the 
French, which, though containing 22,000 lines, was then, as now, 
incomplete. He informs us, further, that the story of Waldef and 
his sons was first composed in verse, and translated from English 
by the French poet at the instance of a lady, the author's " friend," 
who did not understand that language. To judge from the 
summaries of the story, it was of the regular outstretched and 
extravagant combative sort we shall presently see examples of in 
Beves of Hampton and Guy of Warwick. We hear not only of 
the fortunes of Waldef, but of those of his father, King Bede, his 
sister Odenild, his nephew, Florenz, and his sons Guiac and 
Guthlac. Here too are faithless usurpers, exposed children, 
hostile " Saracens," and all sorts of intrigue and combat carried 
on through three generations. 

We have no Anglo-Saxon version of the Tristram story, 
though, as we have seen, there is other evidence besides the state- 
ment in Waldef that such a work existed. Were it not, in fact, for 
the superadded Celtic tone, and the interweaving of Celtic inci- 
dent, which it gained, much to its advantage, by being handled by 
British minstrels, we might fairly group it in the present chapter, 
where according to its origin it belongs. In the beginning it con- 
tained Germanic material very like the romance cycle with which 
we have next to deal, that of Horn and Aelof; but these were not 
so splendidly alchemised by art. 

The oldest extant form of the story of Horn is contained in a 
chanson de gcste by a twelfth-century Anglo-Norman writer named 



ROMANCE 261 



Thomas, based probably on an earlier French version of a Saxon 
alliterative poem. There is no absolute evidence for this inter- 
mediate version, but all indications point to its existence. Its 
scope may b.e inferred from that of the oldest English redaction, 
The Geste of King Horn, composed c. 1250, which probably 
reproduces it in essential substance, if not in style. This, the 
oldest Middle English romance preserved, contains only some 
1550 short fines, rhyming in couplets, while the chanson de geste 
comprises about 5250 alexandrines united by assonance. The 
former is a minstrel's song, written primarily, it seems, for public 
delivery before audiences of plain people, and therefore unaffected 
in tone and succinct in style. In comparison, the French poem 
is a very sophisticated product, courtly and feudal, elaborate and 
refined, evidently composed by a well-informed, cultivated, and 
pious man for the upper classes of Anglo-Norman society. 
In brief, the story of Horn and Rimenhild is as follows : 

The king of a land called Sudene is slain by hostile seamen, who there- 
upon take possession of his realm. His young son Horn they set adrift with 
several companions helpless on the sea. After a day and night their boat is 
cast ashore by the wind in the country of Westerness, in Britain, and the 
youths speedily make their way to the residence of the king near by. There 
they are treated with all kindness, and as time passes grow steadily in favour. 
Horn especially distinguishes himself by his unusual beauty, accomplishments, 
and prowess, and the princess Rimenhild engages him in love. Their 
intimacy is betrayed by a traitorous friend ; the king will accept no ex- 
planations, and Horn is banished from the land. Before they separate, the 
lovers agree to be faithful to each other for seven years, and Rimenhild gives 
Horn a ring as a keepsake, to inspire him in fight. Leaving Britain, he 
journeys by boat to Ireland, where also he wins renown and is offered the Irish 
king's daughter to wife. He refuses, without offence, and remains there in 
all honour until he hears that his lady is to be married against her will to the 
King of Fenice (Reynes). Collecting a body of Irish followers, he returns in 
haste to Britain (Westerness), gains access to the wedding-feast in disguise, 
and reveals himself to the unhappy bride by dropping her ring in the beaker 
of wine that she offers him to drink. Finding her still true, he assembles his 
men, slays his opponents, and rescues Rimenhild from her plight. Without 
delaying, however, to arrange a marriage with her, he sets out to recover 
his native land. This he accomplishes without difficulty, and is reunited with 



262 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

his mother, who since his departure has lived in a cave by the seashore, to 
avoid being put to death by the heathen usurpers. While the hero is restoring 
the land to order and establishing peace, Rimenhild is beset by another lover, 
this time Horn's old comrade, Fikel (Fikenhild), who has carried her off to his 
castle by the sea. Warned by a dream, the hero returns, gains admittance 
to the castle with some of his followers, disguised as minstrels, and soon 
disposes of the traitor and his men. He gives to one of his friends the land 
of Rimenhild's father ; to another, that of the first rival suitor ; and a third 
he weds to the princess of Ireland, before he himself returns with Rimenhild 
to his own country " among all his kin." 

The topography of this tale, a matter of long dispute, has 
recently been determined pretty exactly. Horn's home Sudene is 
a French writing of the Old Norse name for the Isle of Man ; 
Westerness is a peninsula in the "west country," probably the 
Wirral ; and Fenice is Furness. The rudderless boat carried the 
hero, it would seem, into the Mersey, and Chester was the capital 
of the English king's domains. It was there that the marriage of 
Rimenhild was being celebrated when the hero returned from 
Ireland and interrupted it just in time. Ireland is designated in 
the French poem by the Scandinavian name " Westir," West Isles. 

Inasmuch as the names of persons as well as of places are 
Norse, or such as were familiar to Norsemen ; inasmuch, more- 
over, as the story shows striking likeness to Old Norse historical 
sagas of the adventures of vikings in the West, the hypothesis is 
justified that it arose among the Norsemen in the British Isles, and 
was transmitted by them (orally, no doubt) to the Saxons, by whom 
it was communicated in literary form to the Normans in England. 

That there is somewhat of actual fact at the basis of the saga is 
highly probable, though in its present form it shows much poetic 
elaboration. At all events, it reflects the life in Great Britain 
during an impressive period, when Northerners held control of 
Western waters, when the lands along the coast were never secure 
against viking depredations, when kings ruled in petty principalities 
only so long as they were able to resist encroachment or invasion, 
and when control passed suddenly from men of one nation to 
those of another. During this period the Isle of Man was a 



ROMANCE 263 



centre of viking influence, a meeting-place for opposing forces, an 
ever-coveted vantage-ground for invading fleets. The events of 
the story appear most natural if located there. They are such as 
might have been experienced by the Norwegians who were pre- 
ponderant in its control, such as they would have been likely to 
record. 

It was not uncommon in early viking times, as all are aware, 
for noble youths to be brought up among strangers until they 
came to maturity, and then to be helped to recover lands of 
which they had been forcibly deprived. Even without the spur 
of necessity occasionally applied, ambitious warriors travelled 
widely in the path of adventure. They went from one court to 
another to obtain knowledge of the world and experience of men. 
Assistance in war was desired by chieftains everywhere, and strong 
fighters were gladly received by any king. Personal bravery was 
above all lauded in this age of independent achievement, and 
valorous deeds won substantial reward, even to the hand of a 
princess and the control of a kingdom. Were visitors to foreign 
courts also accomplished in ■ music, poetry, or manly sports, 
they were thrice welcome ; for festivities were as frequent as 
combats, and some " abridgment " was necessary to " beguile 
the lazy time." In pastimes of various sorts men and women 
associated, and deep attachments were then naturally formed. 
We have many instances of international marriages between his- 
torical personages which were productive of important political 
results, many cases where the love of great leaders overmastered 
their prudence and led to the rash imperilling of their own and 
their followers' lives. The story of Horn and Rimenhild is the 
natural product of such conditions. It records what were possibly 
actual events of the -tenth century, but in the guise of romance, 
and with certain accretions of fancy which became attached to it 
in the course of a long period of varied transmission. 

The early romance was revised by Thomas with the intention 
of making it part of an epic cycle. The first section of the 
trilogy he planned was to deal with the history of Horn's father 



264 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND ckap. 

Aelof, the second with Horn himself, and the third with his son 
Hadermod. That the part concerning Aelof was written is 
certain, but probably not that about Hadermod. Aelof was a long 
story of the same "exile and return " type as Horn, but apparently 
of West Germanic origin. 

The hero, we learn from the summary in Horn, was a foundling, kindly 
reared by a king named Silaf (Silaus). When he grew up, he was discovered 
to be of royal lineage, the son of Goldeburc, daughter of Baderolf, Emperor of 
Germany, and Silaf gave him the princess Samburc to wife. Previously he 
had distinguished himself by his prowess, overcoming many heathen warriors, 
but had been the victim of calumny on the part of a traitor Denerey. We 
infer that these unjust accusations concerned his relations with the princess, 
and no doubt resembled those directed against Horn by Fikel, and that, being 
in some way vindicated, he was decreed the king's heir. After SilaPs death 
he assumed power and for ten years defended his realm against the heathen, 
until finally he was overcome by an invading host and put to death. His son, 
however, lived to achieve revenge for this disaster. 

On the basis of Thomas's poem was written at the close of the 
next century another English version of the theme, called Horn 
Child, which is much less important. In it the story is miserably 
distorted by the introduction of new matter. There is now no 
mention of Sudene or the coming of the hero to Britain in a 
castaway boat. Instead, Horn's father is made King of North- 
umberland, and his struggles to defend his realm against his foes 
from Denmark and Ireland are related in detail. The hostile 
seamen are represented not as Norsemen, but as Danes, and 
their depredations are definitely localised in Yorkshire. In thus 
altering the induction, the author made use of older traditions of 
conflicts between the Northumbrians and the allied Scotch and 
Irish, which were possibly in poetic form. Horn Child is, in 
truth, a reckless combination of diverse material, the product of 
a period when in romance art was yielding to artifice and origin- 
ality to convention. The conventionality of the poem in both 
phraseology and incident, its inconsistencies and vagaries, its 
tiresome "rhyme doggerel," and many meaningless lines, are so 
conspicuous that Chaucer's ridicule, we can but admit, was 



ROMANCE 265 



richly deserved. He mentions Horn Child as one of the 
" romances of pris " that Sir Thopas so far surpassed in worth. 

One of the most striking scenes of Horn Child, that at the 
banquet, was perpetuated in several Scottish ballads called Hind 
Horn, still current it may be in remote parts. Finally, in the 
fifteenth century, another English version appeared, likewise based 
on the French. This was a translation of the very popular prose 
romance of Ponthus et Sidoine, written before 1445 in French by 
Ponthus de la Tour Landri, with the purpose of exalting his 
distinguished family. Here Thomas's poem is completely re- 
modelled into a book of courtesy, fitted for the instruction of 
noble youth. The work has particular interest as the portrayal 
of an ideal knight of later chivalrous times. 

If we review the history of this interesting story, we shall find 
it an instructive example of the way legend grows, and be put 
on our guard against the use of late redactions of material as 
indicative of its early quality. We have seen that there still exist 
three French redactions of the story of Horn written during the 
twelfth and fourteenth centuries, dependent each on its pre- 
decessor, from which were derived three corresponding English 
versions independent of one another. In each language the three 
redactions differ greatly in form as well as in spirit — the first in 
simple verse, the second in more complicated metre, the third in 
prose. Each version is freer than the last in the treatment of 
the material. New elements are added at every stage; new 
incidents are regularly substituted for old ; new names appear 
as the centuries pass. The motive of the composition ever 
changes. Starting as a simple record of heroic tradition, 
assuming soon the sophistication of romance, the story becomes 
finally a means of glorifying a single family, " whereof a man 
may lerne many goode ensamples, and yonge men may here 
the good dedes of aunciente people that dide much goode and 
worschip in their days." The heroin the first English version 
was a Norseman, in the second an Englishman, in the third a 
Frenchman. Steadily the influence of Continental conceptions 



266 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

increases. Steadily the traces of Northern origin disappear. 
Journeys by land replace those by sea. The action shifts more 
and more from the outlying islands to the mainland of Europe 
and the East. Viking warriors become crusading knights. Each 
redaction reflects the manners and sentiments of the age when it 
was fashioned. The last version is a far cry from the first. 

It would be hard to prove that any part of the story oLHorn 
is historical, though it was definitely localised, and corresponds 
with actual happenings, in early England. In that of Havelok 
the Dane, the foundation of the narrative in real circumstance 
is perhaps equally questionable, or at all events quite as hard to 
define ; but in this case the hero is identified with a well-known 
Norse king, Olaf Cuaran, a conspicuous figure in the history of 
England in the tenth century. His father Sigtrygg (Sihtric) ruled 
for a while in Northumbria, and married as his second wife the 
sister of King Athelstan. After his death in 927 Athelstan 
assumed control in Northumbria, and drove out Olaf. The 
young prince, however, having married a daughter of Constantine 
III., King of Scotland, at the head of a large body of Scots, 
Danes, and Britons attacked Athelstan ; but he was completely 
routed at the Battle of Brunanburh — a defeat, it will be remem- 
bered, which is recorded with exultation in the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle. After the death of Athelstan in 940, Olaf was recalled 
to Northumbria, but ruled there only four years before being 
driven out by Eadmund. In 949 he regained control, but was 
finally expelled in 952. Then he established himself in Ireland, 
where he reigned as King of Dublin until 980. The year after 
he died on a pilgrimage to Iona. 

Now heroic tales of world-wide dissemination have a persistent 
way of getting attached to particular heroes ; and Olaf 's career 
was suitable for fictitious embellishment. He was perhaps con- 
fused in the popular mind with other Olafs ; and various traditions 
were amalgamated to heighten the interest of his life as rehearsed 
by poets and chroniclers, each of whom had his own end to serve. 
Their accounts of the legendary Olaf (Havelok the Dane) are 



ROMANCE 267 



various. All, however, deserve notice here, as having been 
written in England by Englishmen, though only one of import- 
ance is in the English tongue. 

In the twelfth century, when the treasure-trove of the Saxons 
was so extensively appropriated by the Anglo-Normans, were com- 
posed, it appears, at least two French poems on Havelok — one, 
the more primitive, apparently a metrical romance, the other in 
the likeness of a Breton lay. Only the latter is preserved ; but of 
the romance we have a summary interpolated in the manuscript 
of Robert of Brunne's chronicle, to replace certain lines in which 
the historian gives his reluctant reasons for omitting the romantic 
account of the hero. 

Gounter, King of Denmark, is overcome by foes from England and is 
slain in combat. His wife Eleyne manages to escape the general slaughter 
with her young son Havelok " Caraunt," and induces Grim, " a well good 
mariner," to take her from the land. While at sea, they are overtaken by 
" outlaws " and the queen is slain; but Grim lands safely at Grimsby (so 
called after him), and there rears Havelok as his own son. When the 
youth becomes a man he takes leave of his foster-parents and makes his 
way to the court of Edelsie, King of Lyndsey (the northern part of Lincoln- 
shire), whose sister Orewayn was married to Egelbright, Danish King of 
Norfolk. At their death, Edelsie usurps the land and marries Egelbright's 
daughter and heir, Argill, to Havelok, who is then serving him as "quistron" 
(scullion). Havelok is handsome and well-beloved, but Argill, thinking him 
too inferior in station to be her husband, feels deeply her disgrace. Desiring 
knowledge of his kin, she urges him to visit Grimsby, where fortunately they 
learn of Havelok's real parentage. Thereupon the hero sails to Denmark, is 
well received by Sykar, his father's sometime steward, and through his aid 
regains his native land. He then returns to England to recover his wife's 
heritage, is successful, and becomes the ruler of both Norfolk and Lyndsey. 

In the romance, the invader, it was said, went to Denmark to demand 
the tribute " that Arthur whilom nam." In the short poem, the invader 
is represented as Arthur himself. He leaves the kingdom in control of 
Hodulf (Eadulf), whose treason had helped him to gain it. The latter keeps 
Havelok, a youth of seven, in his castle. It is remarked that ever while 
he sleeps an odorous flame issues from his mouth. Hodulf having designs 
on his life, he and his mother are carried off by Grim. The story develops 
as before. Havelok's marriage with Argentille (Argill) is explained as due 
to the desire of the traitor Alsi (Edelsie) to humble her, and yet fulfil his 



268 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

compact with her father, who has left her in his charge on the agreement that 
she shall be married to the strongest man to be -found. Argentille one night, 
bemoaning her lot, observes the mysterious flame, and also has dreams, which 
awaken her wonder. She is urged by a hermit to whom she confides her 
experiences, to inquire concerning Havelok's parentage. They discover the 
truth at Grimsby, and sail to Denmark, where the hero displays amazing 
prowess and is crowned king. Returning to England after four years, he 
defeats Alsi at Thetford (using, by the way, in the battle the device of 
magnifying the appearance of his army by tying the dead to stakes), and 
reigns over Lincoln and Lyndsey for twenty years. 

We are most interested, however, in an English version of 
the story, unjustifiably called a " lay," which in its present form 
dates from about 1300. Its relation to the other accounts so 
far discussed is still obscure. The names of the characters, 
except Havelok and Grim, are all different. Evidently the 
English poem stands by itself; but it is not safe to assume that 
it, rather than the French poems, represents best the original 
narrative either in substance or in style. Like Horn Child, it 
is probably a late redaction of early French material, into which 
new names, new incidents, and new sentiments are introduced. 
But it is a far better poem than Horn Child : it holds the reader's 
attention throughout its 3000 lines by its fresh, unsophisticated 
vigour, and by the interest of its evidently accurate descriptions 
of humble life at the time of its composition. In the structure 
of the poem are apparent certain departures from the primitive 
form (notably the transformation of the induction) which involve 
unhappy duplication of incident, and inconsistencies, but other 
signs of independent treatment, due surely to the poet himself, 
attest him as a writer of originality and considerable narrative 
power. 

The English tale of Havelok was not written for the refined. 
No such " gentleness " as pervades the extant French lay appears 
anywhere except as an echo. Grim is not as there a " baron " 
in the service of the Danish kings, but a rude fisherman. His 
spouse is a homely fishwife. His sons are uncouth and rough. 
The life they lead, in which Havelok willingly participates, is 



ROMANCE 



that of the plain fisher folk of Grimsby in the writer's time, who 
sold their catch and farm produce in " the good borough " of 
Lincoln, and returned laden with articles in exchange. The 
minstrel begins familiarly by asking the "goodmen, wives, and 
maidens," who have assembled to listen to his recitation, for "a 
cup of full good ale," and we may well believe that in the public 
room of an alehouse, or in the kitchen of a manor, his poem 
met with chief favour. The minstrel's style was adapted to his 
humble audience. He endeavours by open appeals to hold 
their attention, indulges them with many proverbs, regales them 
with detailed descriptions of scenes they could enjoy, passes 
hurriedly over such as, being prolonged, " would annoy this fair 
geng (gathering)," and advances for their applause sentiment to 
their liking. " It is no shame for to swink (work)," he says, for 
example, and his auditors, agreed in thought, most likely too in 
word. In truth, the picture of a king's son performing menial 
duties without complaint, hauling a fisherman's heavy nets, going 
in rags barefoot to familiar Lincoln, serving there as a cook's 
knave, and then by a swift turn of fortune's wheel wedded to 
the noblest lady of the land and exalted to the throne, was surely 
calculated to stir the imagination of the lowly, who would listen 
to it with glee. The English lower classes have always admired 
a strong prince of commanding appearance, good at manly games, 
superior in bearing and accomplishments to themselves. More 
than now they formerly believed that men are born to the purple, 
that rulers are divinely distinguished by some mark of God's 
favour, and that hereditary rank demands subservience of inferiors 
as a right. Acknowledging this, however, they felt with the 
author of the romance that noblesse oblige. The king who is 
faithfully served, he makes clear, is himself worthy of love and 
reverence, kindly disposed to his subjects, firm to denounce vice 
in men of whatever station, swift to reward iniquity wherever 
discovered, generous to the poor — -in a word, a man in his own 
person without fear or reproach. In commending the virtues 
of the good King Athelwold, the author plainly utters contem- 



270 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

porary opinions regarding social conditions in his own period, 
such as the insecurity of private property, the maladministration 
of justice, and the abused privileges of the clergy, all of which 
evils Edward I. strove to overcome. 

One passage only we have space to quote, a picture of an 
old-time coronation in merry England, which forms an interesting 
contrast to that of Edward VII. 

When he was king, there might men see 
The most joy that might be : 
Butting with the sharp spears, 
Skirming with talevas x that men bear, 
Wrestling with lads, putting of stone, 
Harping and piping, full good won, 2 
Leyk of mimes of hasard ok, 3 
Romance-reading on the book ; 
There might men hear the gests sing, 
The gleemen on the tabor ding ; 
There might men see the bulls bait, 
And the boars with. hounds teight. 4 

And so on. Every sort of " glee " might be seen ; clothing and 
food were freely distributed ; there were great banquets ; wine 
flowed "so it were water of the sea." The feast lasted forty 
days. 

Havelolc has many comrades in romance — heroes of the 
" exile and return " type. The historical foundation of his story 
is exceedingly slight; -but nevertheless it was taken seriously 
by chroniclers and others and served a political purpose. As 
early as about 1150 Gaimar introduces him into his History of 
the English as a notable figure. Confusing, or deliberately 
identifying, King Constantine III. of Scotland, actually the 
father-in-law of Olaf Cuaran, with the legendary Constantine, 
represented by Geoffrey as Arthur's nephew and successor, he 
pictured Havelok as reigning in the sixth century, a Danish 

1 Skirmishing with large shields. 2 In great quantity. 

3 Also games of chance with dice. 4 Lively (?). 



ROMANCE 271 



ruler of England before the Saxon Conquest. Who was first 
responsible for this notion we cannot say ; but once started, we 
may be sure it was fostered by the Anglo-Danes, who were 
naturally eager to establish a claim to legitimate control of the 
land. It seems likely, therefore, that the story of Havelok was 
developed in the time of Cnut, when it would not have seemed 
unreasonable for a Danish king to have held peaceful sway over 
Northumbria. Several references to the hero in unscientific 
chronicles of later England, even to the time of Caxton, show 
that the belief thus engendered had a long life. 

The romances of Guy of Warwick and Beves of Hampton, of 
similar character, were two of the most popular in mediaeval 
England. Written in French as early perhaps as the twelfth 
century, redacted in English about 1300, and frequently later, 
they remained current in varying form for five hundred years and 
more. Chaucer mentions the two in Sir Thoftas, and from a 
version of Guy borrowed more of the phraseology of his parody 
than from any other "romance of prys." Puttenham in 1589 
attests that Guy and Beves were popular then at "places of 
assembly where the company shall be desirous to hear of old 
adventures and valiances of noble knights in time past " ; but 
these were not the castles of the land. He mentions the two 
among other works as "made purposely for recreation of the 
common people at Christmas dinners and bridals, and in taverns 
and alehouses and such places of base resort." Earlier, high 
and low joined more frequently at common gatherings, and the 
romances of Guy and Beves pleased all alike when read aloud. 
They were then, of course, very different in tone and form from 
the degenerate versions to which Puttenham refers — like splendid 
robes, cast off by their original owners, which, when torn or 
faded, become the treasures of the poor. 

Guy of Warwick was celebrated as a national hero, one who 
by extraordinary strength and valour had saved Saxon England 
from foreign dominion ; and the chief basis of this renown lay in 
the report of his successful combat with a giant Colbrand, who 



272 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

fought as champion of the Danes. By Guy's single efforts the 
integrity of the kingdom was preserved. The account usually 
given of this, the central incident of his career, is as follows : 

King Athelstan is besieged in his capital, Winchester, by the Danes, 
under their leader Anlaf. He must yield unless he can find some one to 
meet the defiant Colbrand's challenge. Athelstan prays for guidance, and is 
bidden by an angel to go early to the gates and secure an old palmer, whom 
he shall find there, to undertake the fight. This is Guy, who has returned 
home after a long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The King induces him to 
meet the Danish champion. He and Anlaf (Havelok) agree that their rival 
claims shall be settled by the duel. The long struggle is described in detail. 
In the end, however, Colbrand is slain and the Danes withdraw. Athelstan's 
joy and gratitude know no bounds ; but no offer of reward will induce Guy 
to remain. He makes his way secretly to his own castle at Warwick, and in 
disguise, along with other palmers, receives from his wife Felice the "dole of 
food that she was wont piously to dispense. He establishes himself at an 
empty hermitage near by and is sent daily sustenance by the countess. When 
at last his approaching death is revealed to him, he summons his wife, 
discovers himself to her, and passes away in her arms. Very shortly after, 
she too dies, and is buried beside him. 

This, the nucleus of the Guy legend, was at first perhaps 
independently treated (cf. the late Guy and Colbrand in the 
Percy MS.). It had possibly some historical foundation, but 
nevertheless appears now as legend. The combat of the two 
champions representing the Saxons and Danes resembles that 
of Tristram of Cornwall and Morhout of Ireland, Arthur of 
Britain and Flollo of France. The situation is interesting, and 
these the closing events of Guy's life might have been rendered 
highly impressive in the hands of a skilful poet. As a matter of 
fact, however, Guy of Warwick taken as a whole is wearisome : it 
is but a series of commonplace adventures stretched out to an 
unreasonable length. The general setting alone need occupy us 
here •■ 

Guy is the son of Sigard of Wallingford, steward of the Earl of Warwick. 
He falls in love with the earl's daughter, a haughty, "difficult" lady named 
Felice. She will only accept him on condition that he wins fame. Thus 
stimulated he crosses the sea and distinguishes himself in many ways abroad. 



ROMANCE . 273 



Not, however, until he is reputed the most valiant knight in Christendom 
does Felice become his wife. For a month after his marriage he enjoys great 
happiness, but then he begins to reflect that his life has been ill-spent : he 
has fought for love of Felice and not for God. Straightway he dons the garb 
of a pilgrim and sets out to expiate his sins. His experiences are many and 
varied. In the East he overcomes giants and brings succour to the distressed. 
Finally, after many years of wandering, he returns to England just in time to 
save his country from the Danes in the fight already described. 

Guy, moreover, was provided with a son Reinbrun, for whom 
also was fashioned a suitable career. Guy, of course, is away 
from home when the boy is born. He is therefore given into the 
charge of a faithful friend, Heraud of Arden. But when only 
seven years old he is stolen away by merchants and carried to 
foreign lands. Heraud searches for him diligently, like Gouver- 
nayl for Tristram. At last he and Reinbrun meet and fight 
together a hard fight, which ends by their embracing each other 
when Reinbrun reveals his name. Other reminiscent episodes, 
in great number, it would be distracting to enumerate. Our 
judgment on such tales as these does not coincide with that of 
our forefathers, who saw in the prolongation of the fanciful 
careers of heroes only a matter of congratulation. 

We observe in these early English romances an epic tendency 
to grow into cycles. When a hero became popular, information 
was demanded regarding his ancestors and his descendants, and 
thus were linked together previously independent narratives, or 
new ones were concocted to prepare for and continue his famous 
career. 'Guy of Warwick apparently owed its amazing popularity 
to the qualities that it shares with the c/iansons de geste : it was at 
once belligerent, patriotic, and religious. That it was an inartistic 
conglomeration did not trouble much the mediaeval Philistines, 
who got from it " both pleasure and profit." 

The old English sagas suffered sadly by being made over in 
the style of the late chansons de geste. They lost their primitive 
realistic force and simplicity, and became extravagant, compli- 
cated, long-drawn-out, and dull. Even at their best they are not 
to be compared for charm with the tales of Britain. The heroes 

T 



274 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

were too pugilistic ; they had too little time for polite amenities. 
They were superstitious, fanatical, and fierce. Women they 
disregarded except as their inferior helpmates. We miss the 
atmosphere of courtesy and refinement that characterises the 
British tales, where gentle ladies enter to "rain influence and 
adjudge the prize." 

Beves of Hampton, though rather less popular than Guy at 
home, had far more vogue abroad. There are three metrical 
French versions of the story and one in prose. From France it 
passed into Italy, where six different versions remain. Redactions 
are also extant in Scandinavian, Dutch, Irish, Slavic, and modern 
Yiddish. The forms most interesting to us are the twelfth- 
century Anglo-Norman chanson de geste (containing 3850 lines), 
and the Middle English romance written about 1300, on the basis 
perhaps of an earlier translation from the French. This latter, 
as preserved, combines two metres, the introduction being in tail- 
rhyme strophe, while the main part of the poem (over 4000 lines) 
is in short couplets. This probably indicates the existence of two 
redactions ; but in Guy the same situation confronts us, and the 
facts are not evident. 

Fundamentally, Beves was a viking tale of the tenth century, 
very like Horn • but in this case no early form of the story per- 
sisted, and it appears now completely transformed in the style 
of the Crusading epic that Horn only by good luck escaped. 
We have no room to trace Beves' robustious career and relate 
how he was done out of his rights for many a long day, but at 
last came to his own ; how during the period of his probation he 
fought usurpers, traitors, culprits, rivals, dragons — any and every 
sort of opponent — always with the same self-confidence, fanati- 
cism, and success. Many are the picturesque features of the 
narrative, but they are drowned in a flood of commonplace. 
The story had lost its simplicity : its topography was turned 
topsy-turvy, and its temper transformed by witless redactions 
before it reached its present shape. Yet the hero was popular 
for the same good reasons as Guy- — his combative zeal, piety, 



ROMANCE 275 



and patriotism. Men were interested also in the achievements 
of Beves' sword Morglay (kept as a relic in Arundel Castle, like 
Guy's armour at Warwick), in his steed Arundel, almost human 
in understanding and fidelity, and in the character of his beloved 
Josiane, more like the forthputting Rimenhild than the difficult 
Felice. A detailed but entertaining summary of this, as well as of 
Guy and other English romances, may be found in the Specimens 
of George Ellis, who, to quote from the encomium of his friend 
Sir Walter Scott, 

the dullest theme bid flit 
On wings of unexpected wit. 

Guy of Warwick, we have seen, is represented as having fought 
with Athelstan at a crisis in the history of the land. The 
opponent of Athelstan at Brunanburh was Anlaf Cuaran, whose 
name at least the hero Havelok bore. We have other evidence 
that this powerful king was long remembered by the people. 
About his name much legend clings ; and a short strophic 
romance, written about 1350, was attached to his name. 

It tells of the relations between the king and his three "wedded brethren," 
who had thus been united in friendship before he ascended the throne. One 
of them, jealous of the king's favour, too liberally, as he thinks, vouchsafed 
to his comrade, accuses the latter and his wife wrongfully, and induces the 
king to act despitefully towards them. Even the archbishop, who interposes 
at the request of the queen, is dismissed, and the queen herself is roughly 
treated. An excommunication, however, brings the king to his senses. He 
recalls the primate, who submits the accused to an ordeal of fire. They walk 
nine fiery plowshares without injury; but the accuser, who is forced to 
undergo the same trial, fails miserably. The traitor is then tortured and 
hanged, as, in the opinion of the mediaeval writer, he richly deserved. 

Some circumstances in this story make one think that it 
would have been better connected with King John than with 
Athelstan. At all events, it took its present shape in a time 
of favouritism and underhand intrigue, when Church and State 
were not seldom in conflict, and when the ordeal and the trial 
by combat were regular methods of determining guilt. By the 



276 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

latter method, Gunhild, daughter of King Cnut, was said to 
have been vindicated from an unjust accusation of adultery, and 
her story was sung of in the streets in the twelfth century, as 
William of Malmesbury attests. 

Of Athelstan and Anlaf Cuaran William also records a 
pleasant tale of how the latter visited the English camp on the 
eve of the Battle of Brunanburh in the disguise of a minstrel, 
and, though recognised by a former follower, escaped unbetrayed. 
Similarly, King Alfred was fabled to have gained access to the 
camp of his enemies in disguise. The great Alfred, in truth, 
had attached to him much legend that the people lovingly 
perpetuated. If in the Middle Ages he was " England's darling," 
it was in good measure because of the tributes of unauthentic 
tradition. But here we may recall certain actual vicissitudes of 
his early career — the circumstances of his life in the inaccessible 
retreat of Athelney. As Asser informs us : 

Alfred, King of the West Saxons, with a few of his nobles, and certain 
soldiers and vassals, used to lead an unquiet life among the woodlands of 
the county of Somerset in great tribulation ; for he had none of the neces- 
saries of life except what he could forage openly or stealthily, by frequent 
sallies, from the pagans or even from the Christians who had submitted to 
the rule of the pagans. 

Alfred, then, was for a time a fugitive, a royal outlaw, the 
most dignified of a goodly number of popular heroes in England 
who openly resisted foreign aggression or official injustice. In 
no other country, except Iceland, where the sagas of Grettir 
and Gisli were read with glee, were tales of outlaws so popular 
as in England. 

Hereward the Wake, who, with his valiant band of Saxons, 
kept the Conqueror so long at bay in the marshes of Ely, no 
doubt had his exploits recorded in the vernacular, though we 
know them only in a Latin redaction. In Anglo-Norman verse 
of the thirteenth century are told the adventures of the famous 
pirate Eustace the Monk, who flourished in King John's time ; 
and although, to jud~£ frn m the statements of contemporary 



ROMANCE 277 



chroniclers, he was in fact desperately wicked, a constant terror 
to the English, the romance of his life is highly entertaining, 
and we applaud his deceptions of witless foes. It is to be noted 
that, though a freebooter, he came of a distinguished family. 
This is true likewise of another outlaw, Fulk FitzWarren, 
whose deeds were also celebrated in an Anglo-Norman poem, 
preserved, unfortunately, in a prose paraphrase only. Fulk 
belonged to a noble family living on the Welsh border. His 
father was a favourite of Henry II., and he himself was a 
friend of Richard I. He caused John infinite worry, but finally, 
in 1203, was pardoned by him and restored to his rights. 

These outlaws were real personages, recognised by con- 
temporary historians, though many of the tales about them are 
purely romantic and fabulous. It is different with Robin Hood, 
who, in Professor Child's judgment, is " absolutely a creation 
of the ballad muse." 

"Robin Hood," says that great scholar, whose authority in the matter of 
ballad history is supreme — " Robin Hood is a yeoman, outlawed for reasons 
not given but easily surmised, ' courteous and free,' religious in sentiment, 
and above all reverent of the Virgin, for the love of whom he is respectful 
to all women. He lives by the king's deer (though he loves no man in the 
world so much as his king) and by levies on the superfluity of the higher 
orders, secular and spiritual, bishops and archbishops, abbots, bold barons, 
and knights, but harms no husbandman or yeoman, and is friendly to poor 
men generally, imparting to them what he takes from the rich. Courtesy, 
good-temper, liberality, and manliness are his chief marks; for courtesy and 
good-temper he is a popular Gawain. Yeoman as he is, he has a kind of 
royal dignity, a princely grace, and a gentlemanlike refinement of humour. 
This is the Robin Hood of the Gest especially; the late ballads debase this 
primary conception in various ways and degrees." 

The Gest of Robin Hood dates in its present form from the 
early sixteenth century, but may have been put together as 
early as 1400, or before, on the basis of still earlier ballads. 
It is " a popular epic," divided into eight " fyttes." It tells 
above all of Robin's relations with Sir Richard at the Lee, 
how he rescued him from a sad predicament by lending him 



278 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND chap. 

money with which to pay his debts, how the knight proved 
himself a faithful friend and ran risks for his sake, but lost 
nothing in the end because of the bravery and adroitness of 
the outlaw and his trusty followers, notably Little John. This 
delightful ballad- epic is too familiar to need retelling. It 
leaves us in love with Robin and his men, happy in their 
power to outwit the poor sheriff of Nottingham and deprive 
the fat ecclesiastics of their garnered grain ; it makes us believe 
in honesty, liberality, courtesy, manly accomplishments, and the 
outdoor life. 

In summer, when the shawes be sheen, 
And leaves be large and long, 

It is full merry in fair forest 
To hear the foules song : 

To see the deer draw to the dale, 

And leave the hilles hee (high), 
And shadow 'em in the leaves green, 

Under the green-wood tree. 

This we feel profoundly. And England is the merrier, the 
English are truer and freer, because of the mediaeval ballads 
of Robin Hood. 

The words just quoted are from the fine old ballad of Robi?i 
Hood and the Monk, which tells how the monk and the sheriff 
of Nottingham, who have captured Robin, are deceived by the 
cunning of Little John and Much the Miller's son, and lose 
their prisoner. The king also is befooled by the same bold pair. 
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne attests not only Robin's skill 
in archery, but his strength in fight and his splendid audacity : 
he slays the unhappy Guy in single combat, dresses up in the 
latter's clothes, advances boldly into the presence of the sheriff, 
and releases Little John from serious peril. Robin Hood and the 
Potter gives a pleasant account of how the former exchanges 
clothes with a potter, who has proved himself worthy of his 
fellowship by beating him in fight, and, thus disguised, gets him- 
self entertained by the sheriff and outwits him merrily. Here 



ROMANCE 279 



Robin acts somewhat like his historical prototypes Hereward, 
Fulk FitzWarren, and Eustace the Monk. 

The ballads which deal with such heroes are indicative of 
popular sentiment. The famous English outlaws were regarded 
sympathetically when they resisted official interference in what 
they considered their rights. The game laws being administered 
with great severity, those who represented the rulers were the 
object of general dislike, and were deceived gladly whenever it 
was possible. We have a delightful ballad of three brave archers 
of Inglewood Forest, outlawed for breach of these laws, Adam 
Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudesly, who engage 
our full sympathy. 

William is a married man, who, in spite of the remonstrances of his sworn- 
brothers, goes one day to see his wife and children at Carlisle. The ballad 
tells how he is discovered and captured, and how he is freed by his comrades 
after a fine display of stratagem, boldness, and skill in handling the long-bow 
— how thereupon they seek grace from the king, and win it through the 
interposition of the queen — how, finally, to allay the king's wrath, which 
increases when the news comes of the terrible slaughter of his men that the 
outlaws have caused at Carlisle, Cloudesly displays his amazing power as an 
archer : like William Tell, he shoots an apple from his son's head. The king 
appoints Cloudesly chief-rider over the north country ; his wife and sons are 
taken into the queen's service ; and his yeoman friends dwell happily at court. 

The placability of the king is exhibited also in the highly 
interesting tale of Gamelyn, which is familiar in a poem of 
some 900 long lines, written about 1350. It was preserved by 
scribes among Chaucer's works, and is thought to have been a 
poem that he had in mind to redact. If so, it would doubtless 
have been put into the mouth of the forester-yeoman, who knew 
all the " usage " of woodcraft. 

He was clad in cote and hood of grene ; 
A sheef of pecok-arwes brighte and kene 
Under his belt he bar ful thriftily; . . . 
And in his hand he bar a mighty bowe. 

It would surely have been suitable for this picturesque yeoman 



280 THE MATTER OF ENGLAND CHAP. 

to tell of a " crowned king of outlaws," as Gamelyn is pictured 
in the tale. 

He is the youngest of three brothers, a youth of extraordinary physical 
strength, who wins a reputation for boldness and courage. His eldest brother 
seizes his possessions and tries to get rid of him, but is outwitted and in the 
end hanged for his sins. The hero is a reckless outlaw, who defies sheriff 
and justice of the peace with a light heart. He has been driven to this life, 
however, simply by necessity : " He must needs walk in wood that may not 
walk in town." He is in the wood, he asserts, 

no harm for to do, 
But if we meet with a deer to shoot thereto, 
As men that be hungry, and may no meat find, 
And be hard bested under wood-lind. 

So; when the king wishes, he is very glad to make friends with him, and 
accepts from his monarch a position as " Chief Justice of all his free forest,'' 
provided only that all his "wight young men" are likewise forgiven and 
well treated. 

This is essentially a manly tale. Women are rigidly ex- 
cluded. To be sure, just at the close, Gamelyn is said to have 
wedded a wife " both good and fair " ; but that was not a 
matter to be talked about. Strangely enough, in the future 
development of the story love and marriage assume the chief 
place. Gamelyn gives way to Orlando, and Rosalind is intro- 
duced to ennoble as well as to complicate the tale. In some way 
or other, a version of it got into the hands of Thomas Lodge, 
who used it as a basis for the first part of his novel entitled 
Euphues' Golden Legacy. On this novel Shakspere founded 
his play of As You Like It. 

Times had changed when Shakspere wrote. The forest 
of Arden was not then the abode of outlaws as of old. Now 
the past is even more remote, but still we feel with Keats : 

Gone, the merry morris din, 
Gone, the song of Gamelyn; 
Gone, the tough-belted outlaw 
Idling in the ' ' grene shawe. "... 



ROMANCE 281 



So it is ; yet let us sing 
Honour to the old bow-string ! 
Honour to the bugle-horn ! 
Honour to the woods unshorn ! 
Honour to the Lincoln green ! 
Honour to the archer keen ! 

"Next to adventures of Robin Hood and his men, the most 
favourite topic in English popular poetry is the chance encounter 
of a king, unrecognised as such, with one of his humbler subjects. 
. . . The most familiar of these tales are The King and the Tanner, 
and The King and the Miller ; the former reaching back beyond 
the sixteenth century, the latter perhaps not beyond the seven- 
teenth, but modelled upon tales of respectable antiquity, of which 
there is a specimen from the early years of the thirteenth century." 
Summaries of several such tales will be found in the fifth volume 
of Professor Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, from 
which the words above are quoted. The early thirteenth-century 
story referred to is that of " pril-wril " told by Giraldus Cambrensis 
about Henry II. Another very entertaining one is embodied in 
John the Reeve, a. poem of 910 lines, preserved only in the Percy 
Folio MS., but dating from the fifteenth century. It relates an 
adventure of Edward Longshanks, which, it seems, was credited 
by his contemporaries ; for, not long after his death, the poet 
Occleve wrote these words : 

O worthy king benign, Edward the last, 
Thou had'st often in thy heart a dread impressed 
Which that thy humble ghost full sore aghast, 
And to know if thou cursed wert or blessed, 
Among the people oft hast thou thee dressed 
Into the country, in simple array alone, 
To hear what men said of thy person. 

John the Reeve is mentioned by both Gavin Douglas and 
Dunbar in conjunction with Ralph Collier, whose acquaintance we 
have already made as the chance associate of Charlemagne. In 
late broadsides and tracts, similar tales are told of other kings : 



282 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

Alfred, James I., William III., and Henry VIII. Bishop Percy 
justly praised John the Reeve for " genuine humour, diverting 
incidents, and faithful pictures of rustic manners " ; but he could 
have found nothing good to say of these poor imitations. We 
recall the dialogue in Love's Labour's Lost : 

Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar ? 

Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages 
since : but I think now 'tis not to be found ; or, if it-were, it would neither 
serve for the writing nor the tune. 



The Matter of Greece and Rome 

The Story of Troy 

In the House of Fame, Chaucer enumerates the chief writers 
honoured in his time for their treatment of classical themes, 
"folk of digne reverence," whom, in his dream, he saw standing 
on high pillars of distinction. Beside Statius, who bore up upon 
his shoulders the fame of Thebes and the cruel Achilles, stood 

Ful wonder hye on a pileer 
Of yren, he, the gret Omeer ; 
And with him Dares and Tytus 
Before, and eek he, Lollius, 
And Guido eek de Columpnis, 
And English Gaufride eek, y-wis ; 
And ech of these, so have I Joye, 
Was besy for to bere up Troye. 
So hevy ther-of was the fame, 
That for to bere it was no game. 

Who are these five men associated with Homer, and what 
have they to do with the matter of antiquity ? Much indeed, if 
we consider the state of mediaeval knowledge. From them, not 
from Homer, our ancestors derived their information of the 
famous war of antiquity. Chaucer calls Homer "the great," 
and no doubt knew that the fame of the Trojans depended 
finally on his splendid poem. But with the Iliad he and his 



ROMANCE 283 



I 



contemporaries certainly had no first-hand acquaintance. It 
was not, of course, their fault. Greek was a language which 
few then understood, and the ancient " tale of Troy divine " was 
not accessible to them as it is to us. Had they known Homer, 
they would at once have acknowledged his literary superiority to 
all his successors who treated the same theme, unless perhaps for 
patriotic reasons they had withheld their praise of his work. In 
the following words Chaucer reveals the first secret of the neglect 
of Homer : 

But yit I gan ful wel espye, 
Betwix hem was a litel envye, 
Oon seyde, Omere made lyes, 
Feyninge in his poetryes, 
And was to Grekes favorable ; 
Therfor held he hit but fable. 

In the Middle Ages Englishmen firmly believed themselves 
to be of Trojan descent, and applauded those only amongst the 
narrators of the story of Troy who ministered to their national 
pride. On this ground they were particularly grateful to Geoffrey 
of Monmouth ("the English Gaufride"), who was almost as re- 
sponsible for the renown of the 'legendary Brutus as for that of 
Arthur. 

With Geoffrey's contribution to the matter we may begin. 
Before tracing the development of the romantic history of the 
Trojan War, we must first examine the basis of the widespread 
tradition of the blood connection of the Western peoples with 
the Trojan race. This was regarded in the Middle Ages in Eng- 
land almost as an axiom of historical truth. English chroniclers 
after the Conquest seldom failed to mention it ; no reader 
ever dreamed of disputing the accuracy of his author's assertions. 
Had Milton, even in his time, written a national epic of Arthur, 
as he purposed, he would unquestionably have begun with this 
fable. Following Geoffrey, he would have recounted the journey 
of the Trojans to Britain and the deeds of their posterity, includ- 
ing the story of "Sabrina fair," 



284 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

Virgin, daughter of Locrine, 
Sprung of old Anchises line. 

Before Geoffrey, this voyage was believed in and recounted ; 
but it was reserved for him to enlarge and elaborate the narrative 
with picturesque detail. Brutus, we learn, having set sail from 
Greece to establish for himself a new kingdom, and at a 
loss whither to direct his course, lands at a dispeopled island 
called Leogecia, to consult the oracle in an ancient temple of 
Diana. The Latin elegiacs which Geoffrey, his Virgil in mind, 
represents him as then uttering, Milton thus translates : 

Goddess of Shades, and Huntress, who at will 
Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep, 
On thy third reign, the Earth, look now, and te*ll 
What land, what seat of rest thou bidd'st me seek, 
What certain seat, where I may worship thee 
For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires. 

And this is the reply that the warrior in a vision receives from 
the goddess : 

Brutus, far to the West, in the ocean wide, 
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, 
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old ; 
Now void, it fits thy people. Thither bend 
Thy course ; there shalt thou find a lasting seat ; 
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise, 
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might 
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold. 

Thus guided, Brutus makes his way with a brilliant company 
to Britain, where, after some struggles with giants and other 
opponents, he builds a new Troy. 

Geoffrey's story gained universal credence. The account of 
the Trojan invasion was speedily accepted as a very ancient 
tradition, and the British plumed themselves in consequence of 
their supposed illustrious descent. As prone as we to romance 
about the past, our forbears of a thousand years ago willingly 
lengthened out the genealogy of their race by conjecture. 



ROMANCE 285 



But not only were the British, as shown by Geoffrey, of 
Trojan descent : so also in other ways were the Franks, the 
Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans — in truth, almost all the 
nations of Western Europe. If Arthur belonged to the lineage 
of Trojan kings, so also did Odin and Charlemagne, Alfred the 
Great, Cnut, and William the Conqueror. To show how this was 
brought about would be too long a tale to tell here. It will be suffi- 
cient to indicate why it was a matter of great political and literary 
moment. On our ancestors in England its influence was three- 
fold : it supported them in a feeling of national and personal 
dignity; it united them in sentiment with other races supposedly 
of the same blood; and it made them eager to hear the tales 
of antiquity. 

Geoffrey surely did his best to arouse feelings of independence 
on this account. He represents Julius Caesar as saying of the 
Britons when he first got a prospect of their land : 

In truth, we Romans and the Britons have the same origin, since both are 
descended from the Trojan race. Our first father, after the destruction of 
Troy, was ^Eneas ; theirs, Brutus, whose father was Sylvius, the son of 
Ascanius, the son of ^Eneas'. . . . Before the Romans offer to invade or 
assault them, we must send them word that they pay tribute as other nations 
do, and submit themselves to the senate ; for fear we should violate the blood 
of our kinsmen. 

In Cassibelaun's answer to Caesar we see how their supposed 
origin may have engendered actual pride in the islanders : 

Your demand, Caesar, is scandalous, since the same vein of nobility flows 
from tineas in both Britons and Romans, and one and the same chain of 
consanguinity unites us ; which ought to be a band of firm union and friend- 
ship. It was that which you should have demanded of us, and not slavery ; 
we have learned to admit the one, but never to bear the other. 

For this potent conviction, cherished by the people, literary 
men were in the beginning wholly responsible. By way of recom- 
pense, it helped to perpetuate the literature of antiquity. To the 
mediaeval versions of the Trojan War we now turn. 

The Iliad was epitomised, perhaps as early as the first cen- 



286 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

tury, by Pindarus Thebanus, in a Latin poem of noo hexametef^^ 
lines — a work composed, it is reported, for the convenience of the 
author's son, not inelegant, yet without much feeling for propor- 
tion or exactitude of fact, written more in the style of the Latin 
poets than the Greek. In the second century probably, there 
appeared in Greek a book of annals of the Trojan War, which 
circulated widely in a Latin redaction called the Ephemeris Belli 
Trojani, attributed to one Dictys Cretensis. This account pro- 
fessed to have been written by a participant in the siege of Troy, 
a Cretan of Gnossus, at first in the Phoenician language. It was 
enclosed, we are informed, in a tin chest and placed in the 
historian's tomb. In the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, 
however, an earthquake opened the tomb, and the work, then 
rediscovered, was borne to the Emperor, who had it turned 
into Greek and placed in a library. Later it was translated into 
Latin. Strangely enough, this preposterous story was widely 
credited, and the history itself was regarded for many centuries as 
authoritative by the learned Greeks of the Lower Empire. 

In the sixth century, probably, was written another work on 
the Trojan War, the object of which was plainly to destroy the 
effect of Dictys's account, which favoured the Greeks, by pre- 
senting the matter from a point of view nattering to the Trojans. 
Dares Phrygius, the fancied author, was proudly introduced to 
the world and represented as an eye-witness on the Trojan 
side, whose Historia de Excidio Trojae gave the true statement 
of the war. This impudent forgery, for which likewise ancient 
authority was claimed, is a flimsy document with no literary 
or historical value ; but it was received with enthusiasm by all 
who believed in their Trojan descent, and in France particularly, 
where innumerable copies still exist, it was regarded as precious 
to a degree. 

Apparently, it was more than once elaborated and extended in 
the course of time to satisfy the desires of those who wished more 
information than the inadequate account of Dares afforded. At 
all events, it seems necessary to assume a considerable develop- 



ROMANCE 287 



ment of the story to explain the first important treatment of the 
theme in mediaeval literature, that of the skilful French clerk 
Benoit de Ste. More (near Tours), who, about 1165, wrote a 
Roman de Troie, which at once became the standard account of 
the famous strife. Manuscripts quickly multiplied, despite the 
poem's great length of over 30,000 lines ; it underwent redac- 
tions ; it was translated into several languages ; it was referred to 
in the Middle Ages countless times. The work was dedicated to 
Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry II. We need have no doubt the 
Anglo-Normans knew it well. 

Benoit was a writer of no mean merit. His style is clear, 
fresh, and flowing. His story, being long-drawn-out and 
burdened with detail, is naturally monotonous in parts, but by 
compensation in others it is told with peculiar vigour and 
dramatic force. It is one of the chief productions of the most 
brilliant half-century of Old French literature. Then, too, were 
written a Roman de Thebes and a Roman d' Eneas, remodellings of 
the works of Statius and Virgil, animated by the mediaeval spirit. 
This spirit, it is important to observe, was not in the least that of 
antiquity. The writers of these " romances " paid no heed to 
what we now call "historical colour." They did not try to put 
themselves into the world of their heroes, to picture them as they 
really were, in the surroundings in which they actually lived. 
The Roman de Troie is a picture of life in mediaeval France. 
The leading characters bear Greek and Roman names, to be 
sure, but they wear the apparel and equip themselves in the 
armour commonly used in Benoit's time. They inhabit castles 
with drawbridges and crenellated towers and donjon keeps, like 
those of the followers of Henry II. They carry on their warfare 
like feudal lords of his day ; they act like them in times of 
peace, observe the same customs, are actuated by the same 
impulses, stimulated by the same faith. The worshippers of 
heathen gods have transferred their allegiance to the one supreme 
deity of the Bible. Calchas is represented as a Christian 
bishop, with a goodly provision of monks and cloisters under his 



288 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

rule. The Trojans -fast on appropriate occasions and swear by 
relics solemn oaths. The gods and goddesses of classical 
mythology, who are so influential in Homer's epic in directing 
the affairs of men, have entirely disappeared in Benoit's romance, 
rejected with incredulous scorn. On the other hand, the popular 
beliefs in fairies, demons, and occult spirits have left an obvious 
mark : Hector is loved by Arthur's sister Morgain the fay, and 
rides a magic horse he gets from her. We are astonished to find 
warriors with such names as Leopoldus de Rhodes, Doglas, 
Margariton, Brun de Gimel associating with famous heroes of 
the past. No explanation was given, for none was demanded. 
Benolt saw- antiquity through a glass darkly, and relished the 
sight. He transmitted his cloudy vision to his contemporaries 
and they rejoiced with him. The French through his work got 
the same sort of view of Greece and Rome that Crestien gave 
them of ancient Britain. Benoit and Crestien were products of 
the same conditions ; they lived in a personal age, when men saw 
themselves in the past, an era of interest to them, almost entirely 
because it contributed to their enjoyment or fostered their pride. 
The strange transformation of the matter of Rome and Britain in 
their hands was perhaps as unconscious as inevitable. 

Benoit's romance suffered an undeserved fate. It was largely 
superseded in popular favour by a Latin translation that professed 
to be based directly on Dares. This was the Historia Destructions 
Trojae by Guido delle Colonne, which appeared in 1287, and (as 
is attested by the numerous extant manuscripts, and by the fact 
that it has been turned into some ten languages) attained lasting 
popularity. Guido was a judge at Messina in Sicily, and undertook 
to write at the invitation of the Archbishop of Salerno, Hugo de 
Porta. He was a learned man, and, though following Benoit in 
the main, made additions from various other sources, particularly 
Virgil and Ovid. Occasionally he gave himself loose rein in 
moral reflection. On women he was particularly severe. It was 
surely with intent to deceive that he made no mention of Benoit 
as a source. 



ROMANCE 289 



Here we cannot discuss even the most important versions of 
the story of Troy, based on Benoit and Guido, in the various 
languages of Europe, though we might come thereby to a better 
understanding of one of the chief means by which men of different 
nationalities in the Middle Ages were welded together in a 
common sentiment. We must limit ourselves to English, in which 
many metrical versions appeared in and after the fourteenth 
century. Before examining them, however, it is well to recall the 
fact that the history was for centuries before familiar in French, 
and also that in 1187 or thereabouts had appeared Joseph 
of Exeter's Latin poem De Bello Trojano. Joseph shows, unusual 
originality and skill in presenting material derived chiefly from 
Dares, Ovid, and Statius, perhaps also from Virgil. 

The earliest extant English version of the story, a faithful 
translation of Guido, appears to be the alliterative poem, over 
14,000 lines long, entitled The Geste Hystoriak of the Destruction 
of Troy, which exists in a unique manuscript in the West 
Midland dialect. The author had considerable poetic power. 
His style is at times very vigorous and impressive. He intro- 
duces into the narrative passages that show him the heir of 
excellent traditions from the English past. 

In the less significant poem The Siege of Troy (in short 
couplets) we seem to have a free abridgment of part of Benoit's 
romance, which the author had before him in a somewhat 
enlarged form — a form like that which Konrad von Wiirzburg 
used for his Trojanerkrieg, and Gower for some of the tales in 
the Confessio Amantis, a form which contained the Odyssey as 
well as the Trojan War. As the title indicates, the author's chief 
concern was with the siege of the city, and he therefore treats 
very succinctly the preceding events. 

But of all the English versions of the legend as a whole, the 
best is certainly the Troy- book of Chaucer's devoted disciple, 
John Lydgate, monk of Bury St. Edmunds, which he began in 
1 41 2 or a little later, and when complete presented to Henry V. 
In 15 13 it was printed by Pynson at the command of Henry VIIL, 

u 



290 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

under the title of The History, Siege, and Destruction of Troy, and 
afterwards by others with sundry changes. Lydgate based his 
poem, over 30,000 lines long, mainly on Guido ; but he treated 
his material with much freedom, and in so doing added greatly 
to its charm. His descriptions of natural scenes, of festivals, 
combats, and the like are interesting and picturesque. Lydgate 
was a much better poet than he is usually reputed to be, and in 
many passages the Troy-book bears witness to his power. He 
moves freely in the stanza of his master's Troilus. 

Several other versions of Guido, not yet printed, were written 
in the fifteenth century. Fragments of a Scottish version, in all 
about 3715 lines, are preserved in two copies of the Troy-book, 
to fill lacunae. The poem from which they were taken must have 
been very long. It is ascribed to one Barbour, though whether 
or no he can be identified with the author of the Bruce is still a 
matter of dispute. But that version of Guido which was destined 
to become most popular in England, and supersede all the rest 
but Lydgate's, was contained in Caxton's Recuyell of the Historyes 
of Troye, a translation from the French prose of Raoul le Fevre. 
This work was compiled by the author in 1464 (four years only 
before the Order of the Golden Fleece was founded), at the 
command of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Caxton translated 
it in 1471, and a few years later, about 1474, put it in type, thus 
making it the first English printed book. It ran through no less 
than fourteen editions between 1503 and 1738, and within the 
last few years has been twice reprinted — not, surely, because of 
its merit. 

The French metrical romance of Benoit and the Latin prose 
would-be history of Guido evidently enjoyed great popularity in 
England in Chaucer's time, as before and after. That Chaucer 
himself knew both intimately there is abundant evidence to show. 
It is possible that he may also have known Dares at first hand. 
He did not, however, decide, like so many of his contemporaries 
and successors, to recount again the whole story of the Trojan 
War, but chose rather to renew and revivify an episode of a 



ROMANCE 291 



romantic, not a belligerent, character, the now famous love of 
Troilus and Cressida. In choosing this theme he was influenced 
by the example of his favourite author, Boccaccio, who had 
previously written a poem on the subject that served our great 
poet as a guide. Before discussing Chaucer's indebtedness to 
Boccaccio in this regard, we must first trace briefly the develop- 
ment of the theme. 

Its beginnings are, in truth, somewhat obscure. We have 
now no literary treatment of the episode earlier than Benoit, and 
yet it is to be presumed that he did not wholly invent it. Dares, 
to be sure, says very little about Briseida (or Briseis, for such was 
the Greek name of Achilles' mistress), simply describing her 
among others of the Grecian camp ; but what he says seems to 
indicate that her characteristics of appearance and disposition were 
then well known : " Briseidam formosam, alta statura, candidam, 
capillo flauo et molli, superciliis junctis, oculis venustis, corpore 
aequali, blandem, affabilem, verecundam, animo simplici, piam." 
Dares praises Troilus also ; but he and Briseida are not connected. 
Apparently the tale of her love for Troilus and Diomed was some- 
what developed in forms of the story now lost, so that Benoit's 
elaboration of the incident need not all be laid to the credit of 
his imagination, though undoubtedly he contributed much to its 
charm. In Benoit the emphasis is laid rather upon the way in 
which Diomed won the love of Briseida, which she had previously 
pledged to Troilus, than upon the manner of its first awakening 
by the Trojan hero. 

Briseida is the maiden daughter of Calchas, who has deserted Troy to 
join the Greeks. She is loved by the hero Troilus, who is disconsolate when 
(an exchange of prisoners having been effected after the capture of Antenor) 
she leaves the Trojan camp to be united to her father. Diomed, the Greek, 
whose duty it is to conduct her to his camp, falls passionately in love with 
her, and finally succeeds in winning her regard. In a first combat with 
Troilus he overcomes him, and sends the steed he captures to Briseida. In 
another engagement, however, Troilus wounds him very severely, and vents 
his indignation on his former love because of the way she has deceived him. 
She, moved by pity for Diomed, then deprives Troilus even of her lingering 



292 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

affection, and abandons herself wholly to his rival. Troilus apparently con- 
tinues in indignant torment, while Diomed has the reward of his labour. But 
in the last ten thousand lines of Benoit's poem almost no mention is made 
of the affair. 

This incident — it is no more — in the Roman de Troie, trans- 
lated by Guido, seemed to Boccaccio a suitable framework for a 
poem which should express his own love. He too, like Troilus, 
had been deserted by a lady (the Princess Maria d'Aquino, natural 
daughter of the King of Naples, who has been immortalised by him 
as Fiammetta), and he determined under the cloak of Troilus to 
voice his sentiments towards her. Naturally, then, he placed the 
emphasis on the first rather than on the last amour of the lady. 
He pictures by preference Troilus in love, his disappointments 
and delights, his final sorrow. Griseida (for such now is the 
form of her name) he represents as a widow, not as a maiden, less 
frivolous and light-hearted than Benoit's heroine, more devoted 
to the Trojan hero, not so ready to transfer her affections to 
Diomed. Into the narrative Boccaccio introduces the character 
of Pandaro (the name from Benoit), whom he pictures as the 
lady's cousin, a gay young gallant, who strives complaisantly, and 
despicably, to compromise his innocent relative to satisfy a friend. 
The poem itself the author entitled 77 Filostrato, The Conquered 
of Love ; his contemporaries hailed it with satisfaction ; and it 
remains one of the most interesting psychological love poems in 
the Italian language. 

II Filostrato was written between 1344 and 1350. Boccaccio 
was still living when, in 1373, Chaucer first visited Genoa' and 
Florence. Before he travelled again to Italy, in 1378, the great 
writer had died. On one of these journeys south Chaucer probably 
became possessed of 77 Filostrato, and this stimulated him to write 
a poem of his own on the same theme. About 1380, or perhaps 
earlier, appeared his Troilus and Cressida, a work of genius, which 
first revealed in him that great capacity as a narrator which came 
to full fruition in the Canterbury Tales. 

For some reason not yet fully understood, Chaucer refrained 



ROMANCE 293 



from mentioning Boccaccio or his work by name, though he does 
not claim originality for his material. Some have supposed that he 
was ignorant of the real authorship of the poem which he utilised 
so extensively ; but this is hardly credible. Deliberately — there 
seems to be no way to avoid the conclusion — he mystified his 
readers by invoking the authority of one Lollius, whom, by his own 
misunderstanding of a passage in Horace, or, more likely, by that 
of some one before him, he believed to be a writer on the Trojan 
War ; and he let it be understood that his source was in Latin. 
Chaucer certainly used both Guido and Benoit in the amplifica- 
tion of the story; but in Troilus he fails to mention them also. 
Perhaps the poet denied Boccaccio's name because he shared the 
mediaeval feeling that a work dealing with a supposedly historical 
theme had to be bolstered up by remote authority, and Boccaccio 
was too modern to suit. 

II Filostrato is composed in the favourite Italian metre, the 
ottava rima, and contains 5352 lines. Troilus comprises 8239 
lines in seven-line stanzas (rhyme royal). A careful comparison 
of the two works has shown that for nearly two-thirds of the poem 
we are indebted to Chaucer alone. His Troilus was, then, a new 
creation, distinctly superior to any treatment of the theme before 
or since. 

We shall have occasion later to study Chaucer's art as displayed 
in this, his rehandling of Boccaccio's poem. Here it will suffice 
to remark that he changed the story in incident and emphasis, 
and greatly modified the characters of the leading actors. Pan- 
darus, above all, is presented anew with consummate skill. He 
is no longer the gay young cousin of Cressida, but her middle- 
aged, experienced uncle, whose advice she might be expected to 
follow, and whose influence in behalf of Troilus was therefore the 
more effective in her undoing. 

In Chaucer's, as indeed in nearly all versions of the story, 
Cressida is faithless to Troilus without disaster to herself. But 
such inconstancy as hers to a true lover was thought unseemly 
by those who clung to the ideas of the Courts of Love ; and they 



294 THE STORY OF TROY chap. 

pictured the fickle lady as suffering justly an unhappy fate. 
Deserted by Diomed, and afflicted with leprosy, she dies in 
despair. 

This conception appears in an admirable poem, the Testament 
of Cresseid, by the Scottish schoolmaster of Dunfermline, Robert 
Henryson. His work was deliberately arranged as a sequel to 
that of his master Chaucer. He had found in a book an account 
of " the fatal destiny of fair Cresseid, which ended wretchedly," 
and he felt that this might be the real situation. 

Who wots if all that Chaucer wrote was true ? 

Nor I wot not if this narration 
Be authorised, or feigned of the new 

By some poet, through his invention 

Made to report the lamentation 
And woeful end of this lusty Cresseid, 
And what distress she thole'd, and what deid (death). 

He represents Troilus as passing near the company of lepers 
among whom Cressida lived, and as tossing her a rich purse, 
because, though he does not recognise her, she reminds him of 
his beloved. Cressida, hearing who her benefactor is, breaks out 
into lamentation, utters her last testament, and dies. 

A mention in Henry V. of the " lazar kite of Cressid's kind " 
seems to show Shakspere's acquaintance with this version of the 
story ; but in his Troilus and Cressida it does not appear. The 
great dramatist for some reason deliberately debased the characters 
and vulgarised the situation. His treatment lacks all Chaucer's 
sympathy and delicacy. 

Shakspere's play was remodelled by Dryden in 1679 under 
the title, Troilus and Cressida, or Truth Found Too Late. 
When Sir Walter Scott republished this, he took occasion to 
remark that in this redaction the tale had still further deterior- 
ated, coarseness being changed to ribaldry. Dryden " suppressed 
some of his [Shakspere's] finest poetry, and exaggerated some of 
his worst faults." 



ROMANCE 295 



The Story of Thebes 

In Chaucer's Troilus is depicted a fascinating mediaeval scene 
in a lady's dwelling. Cressida is sitting in her " paved parlour " 
with two companions, listening to a maiden who reads aloud 
"the geste of the Siege of Thebes." Suddenly Pandarus enters. 
Apologetic for his interruption, he asks what book they are 
occupied with. Cressida, in welcoming him, thus makes 
reply : 

" This romaunce is of Thebes, that we rede ; 

And we han herd how that King Laius deyde 

Thurgh Edippus his sone, and al that dede ; 

And here we stenten at these lettres rede, 

How the bisshop, as the book can telle, 

Amphiorax, fil thurgh the ground to helle." 

Quod Pandarus, "Al this knowe I my-selve, 

And al the assege of Thebes and the care, 

For her-of been ther maked bokes twelve." 

Later in the same poem, Cassandra, the sister of Troilus, when 
interpreting his dream, epitomises the whole story ; and in the 
manuscripts the arguments of the twelve books are given in 
Latin. 

Statius' Thebaid formed, of course, the basis of the Old French 
" romance " of Thebes, which was written by an anonymous poet 
in the twelfth century, slightly earlier than that of Troy, and in 
the same general style that Benoit employed. It made widely 
familiar in mediaeval Europe the substance of Statius' narrative, 
but did not replace it. The Latin poem was familiar to all 
cultivated men in England throughout the Middle Ages, and was 
one of Chaucer's favourite works ; but not from it directly did he 
derive the material for the famous poem that embodies it in part, 
the Knight's Tale of Palamon and Arcite : this is based on an 
Italian poem, // Teseide, of Boccaccio. Soon after writing Troilus, 
and with it in mind, Chaucer again followed the method he had 



296 THE STORY OF THEBES chap. 

adopted there : he reconstructed with surpassing power a work of 
his Italian contemporary, and again failed to mention his source. 
Here the poet was even more independent of his original than in 
Troilus. The Teseide has 9054 lines, the Knights Tale but 2250, 
and of these only a small proportion are paralleled in the Italian. 
Chaucer's changes are seen in the metre, the plan, and the style 
of the poem, as well as in its length. He chooses the heroic 
couplet instead of the stanza used by Boccaccio ; he unifies the 
interest by curtailing distracting episodes ; he manages, by the 
introduction of lifelike incident and characteristic detail, to make 
the scenes of the narrative fairly real. 

Whylom, as olde stories tellen us, 
Ther was a duk that highte Theseus ; 
Of Athenes he was lord and governour, 
And in his tyme swich a conquerour, 
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne. 

These, the opening lines, transfer us at once into the mediaeval 
Atmosphere of antique chivalry, an atmosphere of aristocratic 
remoteness and exaggerated distinction. Chaucer could have 
chosen no more suitable tale for the Knight, the noblest and 
highest of station among his pilgrims. The melody of his verse 
is nowhere more rich. 

The tale of Palamon and Arcite provided the plots of several 
Elizabethan plays. One by Richard Edwards was produced at 
Oxford in 1566 before the Queen herself. The Two Noble Kins- 
men, attributed to Shakspere and Fletcher, was printed in 1634. 
Dryden competed more obviously with Chaucer in his own style. 
Though his Palamon and Arcite has genuine merit, Chaucer's 
poem still remains unrivalled. 

The works of Chaucer and his imitators dealt only with an 
episode in the tale of Thebes. The need of an English version 
of the whole account was felt in the fifteenth century, and this the 
laborious Lydgate, undertaking, as usual, to do what his master had 
left undone, was able to supply. Utilising, it seems, some prose 
redaction of the Old French romance, he told the tale in extenso 



ROMANCE 297 



about 1420. Stupidly, he brought his work into connection with 
Chaucer's : he represents himself as meeting the pilgrims by 
chance at Canterbury, and as being invited by the Host to tell 
the first story on the return journey. We cannot avoid making a 
comparison between it and that of the Knight, the first on the 
way to the shrine. Lydgate borrowed freely from Chaucer's very 
words, but his achievement is vastly inferior. We deplore his 
bad judgment and presumption. His contemporaries seem to 
have applauded him, however, and scribes took lavish care in 
reproducing his work. 

Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Claudian are also mentioned by 
Chaucer as high on pillars in the House of Fame. Their works 
cannot occupy us long here because, though much read in Latin, 
they were but little reproduced in the vernacular. It should 
be noted, however, that, like the other classical epics, the Iliad 
and the Thebaid, the sEneid was transformed into a French 
romance of adventure about the same time. Like the rest, it 
seems to us almost a travesty of the ancient account, but it 
was not so intended ; and, judged without prejudice, we must 
admit it to be at least entertaining. Later, unavoidably, it 
became sodden in prose. In 1483 appeared a French prose 
redaction called the Livre des Eneydes, and this Caxton trans- 
lated for English readers in 1490. 

Ovid perhaps deserves an added word because of the extreme 
popularity of his tales in the Middle Ages. His Metamorphoses 
particularly was a great storehouse of myth and legend, from 
which both clergy and laity, ascetics and lovers, drew material 
about which to moralise as their inclination dictated. Ovid's 
stories- became common property. They were repeated in many 
compendiums of information and amusement. So accessible, 
indeed, was the " matter of Rome " in mediaeval forms that it is 
hard to say whence any one author drew a particular tale. 
Thus, for example, the narrative of Appius and Virginia, told by 
the Doctor on the pilgrimage, probably derives frormthe Roman de 
la Rose, and not from Livy, where it is best known. Henryson 



m % p jhiiw Win ii |i" ■ 



298 THE MATTER OF THE ORIENT chap. 

relied on Nicholas Trivet in his pleasant version of Orpheus 
and Eurydice. 

References to the heroes and heroines of antiquity are in- 
numerable in mediaeval literature of every type. 



The Matter of the Orient 

The Oriental contribution to the narrative literature of the 
West was chiefly in the form of the tale; but some of its 
offerings may properly be termed romance. 

The most important of these is the legendary history of 
Alexander the Great, one of the most popular narratives that the 
world has ever known. Not only in various languages of Asia 
and Africa, but also in almost every one in Europe, some account 
of Alexander's exploits was current ; and in England stories 
concerning him had a continuous history from the close of the 
i Anglo-Saxon period to the accession of Elizabeth. Versions are 
extant in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-French, and Anglo-Latin, as well 
as in Middle English and Scottish, of different dialects and dates. 
It was, in truth, as Chaucer said in the Monk's Tale : 

The storie of Alisaundre is so comune, 
That every wight that hath discrecioun 
Hath herd somwhat or al of his fortune. 

The monk exalts Alexander to the position of a peerless 
emperor, the flower of knighthood and freedom, the heir of 
Fortune's honour, so full of leonine courage that 

Save wyn and wommen, no-thing mighte aswage 
Hys hye entente in amies and labour. 

All the world quaked for dread of him. All of it he 



welded in his demeyne, 
And yit him thoughte it mighte nat suffyse 
So ful was his corage of heigh empryse. 



ROMANCE 299 



Darius, and an hundred thousand mo, 
Of kinges, princes, erles, dukes bolde, 
. . he conquered, and broghte hem in to wo. 
I seye, as fer as man may ryde or go, 
The world was his, what sholde I more devyse, 
For thogh I write or tolde you evermo 
Of his knighthode^ it mighte nat suffyse. 

The Alexander legend had taken shape before the Christian 
era in a Greek work known as the Pseudo-Callisthenes. This 
contains, in germ at least, the whole fabulous history of the 
Macedonian king, yet was itself a culmination of previous reports 
of diverse character brought together by scholars of Alexandria 
to enhance his glory and spread his fame. Though some twenty 
manuscripts of this Greek work exist, no one probably represents 
its original form ; but, by a comparison of various translations or 
versions in Latin, Syriac, and Armenian, it can be restored pretty 
accurately to its third-century form. 

It reached Western peoples through two Latin redactions •. 
one by Julius Valerius, written before 340, of which an epitome, y 
prepared in the ninth century, afterwards became very popular 4 
another the Historia Alexandri Magni, Regis Macedoniae, de 
Proeliis, made by Leo the Archpresbyter after his return journey 
from an embassy to Constantinople, on behalf of the Dukes of 
Campania, in the tenth century. Sometimes connected with one 
or other of these were certain independent works : (1) a letter of 
Alexander to Aristotle on the marvels of India ; (2) a body of 
correspondence between Alexander and Dindimus, King of the 
Brahmins ; and (3) an account of Alexander's journey to Paradise 
—all of which are found separately. 

The Alexander legend was one of the first to be redacted in 
Old French. Towards the end of the eleventh century, Leo's 
work was translated into French verse by the Provengal Albe'ric 
de Briangon ; but only the beginning is left. Later, in twelve- 
syllable verse (which, because of its employment in this work, got 
the name of alexandrine), was produced a great Roman d'AHxandre, 
over 20,000 lines long, by two writers, Lambert li Tort (Crooked) 



3 oo THE MATTER OF THE ORIENT chap. 

and Alexandre de Bernay. Here we see again the mediaeval dis- 
regard of anachronisms and the romantic style applied to ancient 
would-be history. In Alexander the authors strove primarily to 
exalt the chivalric virtues of the Middle Ages, especially largess. 
He was represented by them more as a model knight than as an 
invincible conqueror. 

The first section of the story of Alexander to be put into 
English was the apocryphal journey to Paradise, which was 
turned into Anglo-Saxon prose before the Conquest. Next 
comes a work showing the reactionary desire to perpetuate fact 
rather than fable : about the middle of the twelfth century a 
monk of St. Albans made in Latin a skilful compilation of 
passages concerning Alexander from supposedly trustworthy 
historians. This work, so commendable in purpose, had never- 
theless little influence in England. Its object was set at nought 
by an English clerk of Chaucer's time, who decided to com- 
bine with it the Epitome of Valerius, in order that he might 
\ provide an example for the imitation of youths, by which they 
might be encouraged to eschew idleness and vice. 

In the thirteenth century an English ecclesiastic, Eustace of 
Kent, made over the French Roman, introducing also some more 
historical material drawn from various sources. His work, 
entitled the Roman de Toute Chevalerie, served as the source of 
the best English poem on the subject, namely, King A/isatinder, 
the production of an anonymous poet of the end of the thir- 
teenth century. King Alisaunder contains over 8000 lines in 
couplets, and may have been written by the same author as 
Arthur and Merli?i. Between these two epic-romances there 
is evident likeness in saga material, which was treated in both in 
the same way; both were written in Kent at about the same 
time ; above all, both exhibit a marked similarity in the literary 
device of beginning different sections of the story with a lyric 
or descriptive passage, which is not paralleled elsewhere in 
Middle English poetry of the same sort. Thus, for example, the 
second part begins : 



Fair be tales in company ; 

Merry in church is melody ; 

Evil may the slow hie, 

And worse may blind siweye (pursue). 

Who that hath true amie, 

Jolly he may him in her afye (confide). 

I wot the best is Marie : 

She us shield from villainy ! 

And another chapter : 

In time of harvest merry it is enow ; 
Pears and apples hangeth on bough. 
The hayward bloweth merry his horn ; 
In euery field ripe is corn ; 
The grapes hang on the vine : 
Sweet is true love and fine. 

Peculiar similes and comparisons occur in both works alike, and 
the same method of rhyming in clusters. From the frequent 
references to common trades it may be inferred that the authcr 
was not a man of high rank. He was master, at all events, of an ' 
animated and easy style, pictured scenes graphically, and no 
doubt sustained the interest of his auditors in his borrowed 
theme. 

Three fragments of alliterative poems on Alexander were 
composed about the time of Chaucer's birth. Of these two may 
have belonged to a single work formerly of great length (one 
contains 5680 lines) entitled The Wars of Alexander. Its chief 
source was, it seems, Leo's De Proeliis, a text with interpolations 
being perhaps used. 

These English poems, like their sources, are largely concerned 
with the long succession of wars that the Emperor waged against 
Eastern potentates ; yet they do not lack the allurement of magic 
and marvel. A brief outline of the legend follows : 

Alexander is the child of Olympias, wife of King Philip of Macedon, 
begotten by Nectanebus, an Egyptian, through the power of his sorcery : the 
queen is persuaded that the god Ammon will appear to her, and she readily 
receives the attentions of the disguised magician. Prodigies at the birth of her 



^^mmmmmm 



302 THE MATTER OF THE ORIENT chap. 

boy indicate that he will be master of the world. He shows his right to 
rule by his signal success in taming the wild, carnivorous horse Bucephalus 
(Bulsifal). He early does valorous deeds, avenges an insult on Nicholas, King 
of Peloponnesus, and prevents his father from rejecting Olympias. When he 
ascends the throne, he builds Alexandria, takes Tyre, is nobly received at 
Jerusalem, and burns Thebes. Being defied and sent foolish presents by 
Darius, he. wages a long war against him, which ends by his overcoming his 
foe and winning the Persian throne. He then turns his attention to the gigantic 
Porrus of India, whom he puts to flight. He advances steadily and strongly 
even to the Ganges, the limit of his march. His return journey is marked 
by the many bewildering marvels that he encounters. All sorts of strange 
creatures and creations appear before him. Trees are seen that wax and wane 
in a day, mysterious woods filled with giants, valleys full of crowned snakes, 
cliffs covered with diamonds. The sun-tree of gold and the moon-tree of 
silver address him in prophecy. Mounted on Bucephalus, he has a great 
fight with griffins. In an iron car raised by four of these fabulous creatures, 
he ascends into the air. In an airtight glass vessel he descends into the sea. 
The rich storehouse of Babylonian and other ancient fable was rifled to 
afford him experience ; he is granted eveiy sort of amazing trial. His death, 
at last, is due to treason : he is poisoned by a trusted friend, whom he has 
mildly rebuked. The earth (in some versions) is made to quake at his passing 
,A.way; the sun is darkened ; the lamentation of the people sounds like the 
'^moan of thunder ; he is buried in Alexandria in a tomb of gold. 

The author of King Alisatmder considered the tale as 
" delicious " to listen to. He does not fail, however, to express 
in a closing couplet his deep regret that Alexander was not of 
the Christian fold. 

In one of the alliterative poems was made accessible to 
English readers the imaginary correspondence between Alexander 
and Dindimus, King of the Brahmins, composed by an ecclesiastic 
to discuss certain ethical problems rather than to convey historical 
information. Dindimus maintains that the contemplative life 
of his people is superior to the active life pursued by Alexander 
and his folk, and that their religion is likewise better than that 
of the Greeks. The discussion comes to no conclusion, and is 
simply a well-balanced display of opposing contentions. 

King Alisaunder and The Wars deal with the romantic 
enfances and the whole wonderful performance of Alexander. In 



v tANCE 

a Scottish poem of 14,000 lines, the Bnik of the Most Noble and 
Vailyeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, we have rather an 
account of certain episodes in which in his later career he plays 
a more or less conspicuous part. The work contains three 
principal divisions : The Foray of Gadderis (Gadres, Gaza), 
The Avows of Alexander, and The Great Battle of Effescun. The 
first is from the French Fuerre de Gadres, by one Eustace, prob- 
ably introduced into the Roman by Alexandre de Bernay ; and 
the other two from the Vceux du Paon, by Jacques de Longueyon 
{c. 1312, or earlier) — both independent compositions, "antique" 
neither in contents nor in spirit, but very popular in the four- 
teenth century. 

The Foray recounts an interesting conflict during the siege of Tyre 
between a detachment of Alexander's army under Emynedus and the host of 
Gaza under Betys, in which the Gaderan Gandifer especially distinguishes 
himself by his heroism in maintaining the struggle most vigorously while his 
fellows are beating a retreat. The Grecians are in a fair way to be overcome 
by their opponents, when Alexander is apprised of their perilous position anil. 
comes to their rescue. 

In the Avows it is related how Porrus, the Indian prince, shoots a peacock, 
which is later daintily dressed and served at a fine repast. On this bird each 
one at the repast makes a vow to behave valorously or nobly in one way or 
another ; and the poem tells how in the Great Battle of Effesoun, when they 
oppose Alexander's host, most of them accomplish their brags, and how their 
strife ends happily with bridal, pomp, and festival. 

Though the Buik is only extant in a print of 1580, and 
though this states that it was composed in 1438, the work has 
been very plausibly attributed to John Barbour, on the evidence 
of nearly identical style. It is certain in any case that Barbour 
was thoroughly familiar with the Alexander story. He compares 
his hero Bruce to Gandifer, like him in valorous achievement, 
but not suffering the same sad fate. Telling of the winning of 
Edinburgh Castle by Earl Thomas Randall, he recalls the siege 
of Tyre, when Alexander surmounted the wall of Babylon and 
fought until nearly dead, before he was rescued by his " noble 
chivalry." 



304 THE MATTER OF THE ORIENT chap. 

In fact, Alexander was particularly popular in Scotland. 
Wyntoun, Lyndesay, and Blind Harry refer to him ; and, likewise 
in the fifteenth century (1494), Sir Gilbert Hay, at the instance 
of Lord Erskine, composed a poem about him (not yet published) 
containing some 20,000 lines in couplets. Hay was a cultivated 
courtier, who was engaged, he tells us, in the king's service in 
France for twenty-four years. He relates the whole history of 
Alexander from his birth to his death. He gives only 2500 lines 
to the Foray, which occupies some 14,000 in the Buik. 

Despite the great extent of his history, Alexander's personality 
is as vague, as little individualised, as that of Arthur. He is 
simply a typical invincible conqueror or generous knight. The 
English and Scotch had no interest in him because of any 
reputed connection with their national life ; but they listened 
eagerly like children to the wonders of his travels in the Orient. 
They heard of the strange creatures that occupied India with the 
Fame absorbed interest that the travels of Sir John Mandeville 
x „Jce aroused. This, however, was a diversion pure and simple. 
Even as our curiosity takes us over and, over again to see the 
eccentric animals in a menagerie, so our ancestors, not favoured 
like us by actual exhibitions, enjoyed graphic accounts of creatures 
puzzlingly peculiar. When we remember also that they had 
abundant satisfaction and experience in warfare, we are not 
surprised at the hero's tremendous popularity. The marvellous 
is perennially attractive; far-away lands allure the imagination 
now as in the past ; tales of fabulous beings and fanciful achieve- 
ments still rivet our attention ; and Alexander the Great, who 
sighed for more lands to conquer, is even to this day a name to 
conjure with. 

The matter of the Orient is well exemplified by Chaucer's 
Squire's Tale, which is probably based on an Arabian story that 
the Moors bore to Spain, akin to the source of the French 
metrical romance of Clcomadcs by the Brabantian poet Adenet le 
Roi (1275-1283). This is the tale of the "great bard" that 
Milton specially mentions in // Penseroso : 



ROMANCE 305 



Or call up him that left half-told 

The story of Cambuscan bold, 

Of Camball, and of Algarsife. 

And who had Canace to wife, 

That owned the virtuous ring and glass, 

And of the wondrous horse of brass 

On which the Tartar king did ride. 

The Oriental cast of the tale is manifest from the names of 
the characters, the magic presents tendered Cambynskan (Kanghis 
Khan) by the stranger knight on behalf of his master, the king 
of Arabia and India, and certain underlying conceptions, such 
as the belief in metempsychosis. 

Whatever may have been the nature of Chaucer's immediate 
source, whatever the relation of that source to the Travels of 
Marco Polo, the Squire's Tale is essentially a romance. It 
proceeds with easy rapidity for 672 lines, and then, much to our 
regret, suddenly breaks off. But the poet had the whole tale 
developed before him : he indicates before he stops the course 
of the ensuing narrative. With this tale and that of the Knight 
as evidence, no one can deny that Chaucer greatly enjoyed 
romance, and excelled in its writing. It was not the early courtly 
poems, but the late "rhymes" of common minstrels that he 
parodied in Sir Thopas. 

Other Romances 

Byzantine and Early French — Reminiscent — Legendary — 
" The Nine Worthies " 

We have traced the history of the chief " matters " of romance 
represented in English. But more than a score of romantic 
poems remain for our consideration, which, though sometimes 
linked with one or another of the main cycles, do not properly 
belong to any one of them. Except in a few instances, they are 
inferior in literary value, though among the most popular that 
are preserved. 



306 ROMANCE 



First may be mentioned the originally Greek story of 
Apollonius of Tyre, which is extant in an Anglo-Saxon prose 
version, apparently the oldest translation of the Latin text into 
any Western vernacular. It is a faithful rendering of a tale which 
was very different from anything that the Saxon temper alone 
developed, revealing a style of sentiment at which rugged 
warriors could only have marvelled without understanding it, and 
yet one which may have captivated them by its very unlikeness to 
anything in their own experience. The tale was thrice translated 
into Middle English verse, most notably by Gower, whose account 
(drawn from the Latin) alone is complete. It is the longest and 
one of the best-told tales of the Confessio Amantis, the one with 
which Gower chose to end his great thesaurus of moralised 
fiction. Chaucer, it will be remembered, thought it an "unkind 
abomination," a "horrible " story, and went out of his way to gibe 
at the " moral Gower " for rehearsing it. From Gower's poem, 
supplemented by a prose version that was englished from the 
French by Lawrence Twine in 1576, the plot of the Shaksperian 
play, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, was drawn. 

The Byzantine romances differ markedly from the Arthurian 
in their portrayal of lovers' emotions. Sentimentality rather than 
passion is exhibited in the famous story of Flores and Blanche- 
flour, which appeared in English about the same time as Sir 
Tristram and offers to it a strange contrast. The hero is a youth 
of high station who loves a young captive and- almost dies of a 
broken heart when separated from her by his parents. After 
many vicissitudes the two are reunited and made happy. 

How the story got to France, where the oldest literary 
version exists, and whence it spread to other lands, we are unable 
to say definitely. At all events, two distinct renderings appear 
there alongside of each other. The earlier, "aristocratic" one 
pictures the hero primarily as a gentle, love-lorn boy ; the later, 
" popular " one as a bold fighter, an opponent of heathen kings, a 
deliverer of distressed cities. Oriental yield to Western impulses 
in action, sensuous charm to vehement vigour. It was the 



ROMANCE 307 



aristocratic version that was translated into English. Similar 
material was remodelled to its great advantage in the exquisite 
twelfth -century cantefable of Aucassin et Nicolete, which Mr. 
Andrew Lang has so admirably done into English : 

Who would list to the good lay 
Gladness of the captive grey ? 
'Tis how two young lovers met, 
Aucassin and Nicolete, 
Of the pains the lover bore 
And the sorrows he outwore, 
For the goodness and the grace 
Of his love, so fair of face. 

Sweet the song, the story sweet, 
There is no man hearkens it, 
No man living 'neath the sun, 
So outwearied, so foredone, 
Sick and woeful, worn and sad, 
But is healed, but is glad, 
'Tis so sweet. 

In one redaction of Flores, the heroine is represented as the 
mother of Bertha, surnamed " of the big foot," the wife of Pepin, 
father of Charlemagne. Caught similarly in the eddy of Carlo- 
vingian tradition was the tale of Parthenopeus deBlois, as contained 
in the charming poem of the end of the twelfth century ascribed 
to Denis Pyramus, nearly 11,000 lines long, and yet so excellently 
wrought that it keeps continuous hold on the reader's attention. 
The tale is usually regarded as simply a version of the Cupid 
and Psyche legend, with the roles reversed ; but it is really quite 
different, the points of contact not being essential features of the 
romance. At bottom it seems to be rather the account of a fay's 
relations with a mortal lover. In induction and other features it 
resembles the Breton lays of Guingamor, Guigemar, and Lanval ; 
in development, the romances of Ivain and The Fair Unknown. 
The tale itself has all the allurement of the Otherworld vision. It 
is rationalised, to be sure, but only superficially. Any one familiar 
with the matter of Britain recognises under the surface Celtic 



ROMANCE 



tradition of singular purity. Yet we have not this alone. Parthe- 
nopeus is not simply the hero of a romantic love-episode, the 
beloved of the fairy queen Melior, an enraptured and desperate 
knight, to whom in the end comes transcendent joy ; he is also a 
warrior of amazing strength, a Count of Blois, the son of King 
Clovis ; and it is in the forest of the Ardennes that he is hunting 
when he finds the marvellous fairy boat which carries him to his 
lady-love. He leaves her, with her permission, to defend his land 
from the incursions of the Saracens, of the North, that is, the 
Scandinavians, and fights valiantly " que la France ne soit honie." 
Clotaire is besieged at Pontoise by a Norse king Sornegur, who 
desires his land. The duel between him and Parthenopeus is 
described at great length in the style of the national epic. By a 
splendid victory the hero brings relief to the nation. 

The story of Parthenope became popular all over Europe as 
well as in England. The best English version (in rhymed 
couplets), though over 8000 lines long, is but a fragment. The 
author, who wrote in the first half of the fifteenth century, refuses 
to vouch for the truth of his tale, throwing all the responsibility 
on the French poet, whose work he tries to reproduce exactly. 
This, however, he does only in substance, not in spirit ; for he 
was neither very refined himself, nor wrote,- it would seem, for 
gentlefolk. Like most of the English translators of French 
chivalric romances, he was willing to omit descriptive and other 
delicate ornament. Once, for example, getting a little impatient 
at reciting minutely the details of a lady's dress, he advises those 
interested in such matters to consult the original. As for him, he 
begs to be excused. It would take too long, he urges, and more- 
over is " needless " : 

For each man wots well without les (in truth) 

A lady that is of high degree 

Arrayed in the best manner must needs be. 

The fairy boat of Melior, it is plain, was like that of Spenser's 
" Wanton Damsell " which carries Cymochles and Guyon to her 
" pleasant He " : 



ROMANCE 309 



More swift than swallow sheres the liquid skye, 

Withouten care or Pilot it to guide, 

Or winged canvas with the wind to fly- 
like those " wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind," that 
Alcinous commends to Ulysses in the eighth book of the Odyssey. 
Similarly nationalised was the Old French tale of Amis et 
Ami/es, which appears in a thirteenth-century English redaction 
of uncommon interest. This is a " chanc,oun d'amur, de leaute, 
e de grant doucur," in which the devotion of two foster-brothers 
is related in a really touching narrative. We remember the two 
heroes along with Roland and Oliver, Orestes and Pylades. 

Amiloun takes the place of Amis in a trial by combat, and no one is the 
wiser, for they are marvellously alike in appearance. Amiloun is later afflicted 
with leprosy and is treated despitefully by his wife, so that he flees from his 
own land. Accidentally he is discovered in- a pitiful condition by Amis, whose 
life he has previously saved, and the latter, warned by an angel that the only 
way in which his friend can be cured is by being anointed with the blood of 
his (Amis's) children, he slays them and restores his friend to health. When 
together in sorrow Amis and his wife visit the bedside of the slain children, 
they find that they have been restored to life by miracle, and are as if nothing 
had happened. 

The story of Amis and Amiloun is really a legend, in which 
the domestic relations of the characters are emphasised more than 
their warfare, and Christian faith is paramount. In one Old 
French version it is transformed into a chanson de geste. The 
two noble knights enter Charlemagne's service, and aid him 
against his enemies. The traitorous steward who plots to injure 
Amis is of Ganelon's kin. It is the Emperor's daughter who 
offers her love to Amiles (Amis in the English). As a picture of 
ancient customs and feudal conditions, the poem has value 
apart from its literary worth. 

Parthe?iopeus appears to be a combination of diverse con- 
ceptions, like the lay of Orfeo. Much more artificial was the 
construction of certain romances of English origin that we may 
term " reminiscent," in which various stock episodes are simply 



3io ROMANCE 



linked together according to the author's fancy. The practice of 
concocting romances began as early as the twelfth century, when 
Hugh of Rutland wrote his Ypomedon and Protesilaus. Of the 
former, which reminds us at every turn of some other story, we 
have no less than three distinct English versions, one a poem of 
8890 lines written in a lively style. 

Sir Generides, another romance of a purely artificial character, 
shows borrowings from Ypomedon as well as from various other 
Old French poems. Its most prominent feature is a magic stag- 
hunt, such as we meet in Marie's lay of Guigemar. Two inde- 
pendent metrical versions are extant in unique manuscripts of 
Lydgate's time, and connected with works of his. One has some 
10,000 lines in couplets, the other some 7000 in rhyme royal, the 
former showing a constant tendency to expand the separate inci- 
dents of its original, the latter preserving more unity and proportion 
but less easy in style. The source of both was probably an Anglo- 
Norman poem of the same date and nature as Ypomedon, but this 
has disappeared. 

On the other hand, the Squire of Low Degree, likewise an 
English production of the first half of the fifteenth century, 
appears to have had no single original. 

This is the story of a Squire in love with a king's daughter, who agrees to 
marry him when he shall have proved himself a worthy knight. She will 
be faithful to him for seven years. A false steward accuses the Squire to the 
king, and arranges a trap for him : the youth is set upon when he comes to 
the lady's chamber to bid her farewell. He pleads with her to "undo" her 
door, but she delays too long : when finally she draws the bar, she discovers 
what she supposes to be the dead body of her lover, so hacked as to be un- 
recognisable. Sadly she places the corpse in a chest, which she keeps by 
her in her room, and refuses to be comforted. It appears, however, that it is 
the body of the steward on which she wastes her tears. The Squire has slain 
him, and yet has been permitted by the king to undertake his projected 
career. When, at the end of seven years, the princess is about to enter a 
convent, the youth returns, famous from his wars in Lombardy, and relieves 
her distress. They wed merrily. 

In England formerly, Squires of Low Degree were exceedingly 



ROMANCE 311 



popular figures, whom the general run of folk loved to hear about, 
even as to-day they read with relish of ambitious youths success- 
ful, despite many obstacles, in attaining rank and power. 

There is not much plot in such tales as these embodying the 
" exile and return " motive, which the English did to death, and 
practically no psychology ; but the Squire is interesting for a certain 
freshness of narration, and because of its long lists of birds, trees, 
viands, wines, musical instruments, and armour, which the author 
enumerates with fond care and considerable skill. Here may be 
found material of value in reconstructing the luxurious life of 
decadent chivalry, the spectacle and pomp of Lancastrian knights. 

In Sir Degrevant, another tale of the same period, reminding 
one of The Earl of Tolouse, other aspects of the same life are pre- 
sented in the interesting passages which describe the chamber 
of the beautiful Melidore. On the walls were painted scenes from 
the Apocalypse, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Parables of 
Solomon ; the four Evangelists, with Austin, Gregory, Jerome, 
and Ambrose at their feet ; the philosophers ; besides stories of 
Absalom, Charlemagne, Godefroy, and Arthur. There was a 
"royal roof" adorned with jewels. The floor was of clear crystal 
covered with pall. On the brightly-coloured bed was painted 
the whole story of Amadas and Ydoine. The curtains of the bed 
ran on gold rings. The feast included every dainty. And while 
Sir Degrevant partook, his winsome lady sat " harping notes full 
sweet." 

Such mirths they move 
In the chamber of love, 
Thus they slay care. 

We next come to a series of romances of a legendary char- 
acter, of which we have had parallels in Guy of Warzvick and 
Beves. Their popularity seems to have been very great among 
the common people, and perhaps among the inartistic higher 
classes, no doubt because of their religious and warlike character. 
To us they are distasteful, if not ridiculous. It is unfair, how- 
ever, to take them seriously, as so many literary historians do, as 



312 ROMANCE 



indicating a general crudeness of literary sense in the time when 
they were written. They are for the most part the work of humble 
clerks or ordinary minstrels, whom the cultivated ignored or 
scorned. The majority of those who heeded them were such as 
had no knowledge of better things. Foolish melodramas are 
to-day vociferously applauded in many country, even in some city, 
theatres. Claptrap sentimental and historical novels have now a 
bewildering sale. But not by these should the best sentiment of 
our time be judged. 

Somewhat apart from the rest, by reason of its metre and dis- 
tinguished patronage, stands the long alliterative romance William 
o/Palerne, which was translated from the French at the command 
of Sir Humphrey de Bohun (cousin of Edward III.) about 1350. 
It had originally been written for the Countess Yolande of 
Hainaut, a relative of Baldwin VI., who in 1204 was elected 
Emperor of Constantinople. Naturally enough, the Crusaders 
were most interested in events localised about the Mediterranean, 
and they read of fights with Saracens, of deeds of individual 
heroism, of amorous adventures, of intrigue, deceit, and marvel, 
with the satisfaction of recalled experience. 

The chief hero of the romance is a werewolf, the heir to the throne of 
Spain, who has been transformed into this shape by a stepmother. He saves 
the young William, son of the King of Apulia, from murder, swims with him 
across the Straits of Messina, and later in his career helps him on opportune 
occasions, when, for example, he is fleeing in disguise from Rome with the 
princess Melior, whose love he has won while serving her as a squire of low 
degree. William at last recovers his kingdom, has the werewolf s charm re- 
versed, and arranges marriages for all who could be made to match. 

In the King of Tarsus we have a legendary tale of how a whole 
land was christianised by the instrumentality of a lady, who is 
guided by dreams and supported by miracles. The facts appear 
to have been drawn from the chronicles of Thomas of Walsingham 
and Matthew of Westminster. 

The daughter of the King of Tarsus marries a "heathen hound," the 
Sultan of Damascus, to keep him from devastating her father's realm, pre- 



ROMANCE 313 



tending to accept his belief. Her first child is stillborn and shapeless. The 
father's prayers to Tervagant do not avail to give it life and limb, but after 
baptism in the name of the Lord it becomes vigorous and beautiful. When 
the Sultan thereupon accepts Christianity, he is himself made fair of face. 
He requires all his subjects to embrace his new faith or else be hanged. Five 
kings who object are speedily despatched — all to the glory of God 

A legend akin to that of Constance in the Man of Law's Tale 
is found with variations in Octavian and Sir Triamour. The 
former exists in two versions of about the middle of the 
fourteenth century, one of which in a Northern dialect, and based 
directly on an early French version (the inferior Kentish version 
may rely on a Latin intermediary), is told with considerable vigour 
and good effect. La Bone Florence de Rome, similar in character, is 
also a poem of decided merit despite the absurdities of its theme. 
Here false stewards calumniate innocent women, and gullible 
husbands subject them to shame. Foster-parents rear desolate 
children, who later reveal marvellous strength, rescue princesses 
from giants and dragons, and otherwise show themselves off. 
Fierce .beasts commit rapine, and kindly ones afford succour. 
The fortuitous produces extraordinary complications. Miracles 
are as common as meals. 

The closely allied Sir Eglamour of Artois and Torrent of 
Portugal, of later date, are still more insipid. Sir Eglamour 
successfully achieves three terrible struggles for his Christabel, 
only to discover on his return that, like Constance, she has been 
put to sea in a rudderless boat, for bearing him a son before their 
marriage. This son, Degrabell, is carried away on the journey by 
a griffin. When he grows up, he is, like his prototype, Degare, 
married to his mother, and almost consummates the unnatural 
alliance. At the festival tournament he unhorses every opponent 
except his father Eglamour, who fortunately turns up just then, to 
the delight of Christabel. 

In Sir Lsumbras is preserved a very popular version of the 
legend of Placidas (St. Eustace), a preposterous ecclesiastical 
romance. The hero is a knight humbled by God in every con- 



3 i4 ROMANCE 



ceivable way, who lives long enough nevertheless to learn that all 
things worked together for his spiritual good. The Lord ruined 
his possessions, deprived him of his wife and children, made him 
endure exposure and hardship beyond measure, all apparently 
with the purpose of teaching him humility and testing his 
patience. He is another Job, who accepts his misfortunes with 
resignation, and finally regains his wife, children, and rich lands. 

Robert of Sicily inculcates similar doctrine by thfr much 
more entertaining — indeed, the quite charming — story of an angel 
who usurps the king's place that the latter's pride may be sub- 
dued. This is one of the well-known Tales of the Wayside Inn, 
told there with full sympathy ; for, like the student he so agree- 
ably describes, Longfellow himself 

loved the twilight that surrounds 
The border-land of old romance ; 
Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance, 
And banner waves, and trumpet sounds, 
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist, 
And mighty warriors sweep along, 
Magnified by the purple mist, 
The dusk of centuries and of song. 

From such legendary characters as these we turn to heroes 
of actuality, to real Crusaders, whose deeds notwithstanding were 
clouded by romantic fable. Notably is this the case with our 
own picturesque king : 

Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart, 
And fought the holy wars in Palestine. 

On the basis of a lost Anglo-French original was written at 
the close of the thirteenth century the English romance (over 
7000 lines long) of Richard Coer de Lyon. The author is 
perhaps identical with that of Arthur and Merlin and King 
Alisaunder, having, at all events, the same abundant vigour, the 
same delight in fight, the same rough humour. He too lived 
in Kent. 



ROMANCE 315 



We cannot follow in detail the story of Richard's prowess and conquest, 
though, as the poet says, "it is full good to hear." No tender spirit 
characterises the dauntless hero, but wilful arrogance and violent hardihood. 
Richard appears at times like what his opponents thought him, " the devil 
incarnate." In one instance, for example, he gleefully prepares for the 
messengers of Saladin a ghastly meal. Before all his guests at the table are 
placed platters with the heads of their relatives thereon steaming hot. From 
the dish before him the king eats with good-will, while the messengers sit 
petrified with horror. Richard bids them not be "squeamish," but set to. 
He tells them that it is his regular custom to have as a first course " Saracen 
heads all hot," and feigns astonishment when they show no appetite for the 
other dainties he puts before them. They bear back to their master the 
cannibal message, that since the English find the flesh of the Saracens more 
nourishing than any other, they do not intend to return to England until all 
their opponents are eaten. 

The perversity of Richard's disposition the English poet made 
an effort to explain as due to his having a mother of unearthly race. 

Complying with the urgent request of his barons that he take a bride, 
King Henry sends messengers in all directions to discover the fairest woman 
alive. While sailing on the sea, they meet a white boat most wonderful, in 
which they recognise the lady they seek. The beautiful being therein, 
called Cassadorien, has been directed by a vision to make her way from 
Antioch to England. The king weds her gaily, and the two dwell together 
happily for fifteen years. They have two sons, Richard and John, and a 
daughter. The queen's custom is always to retire from church before the 
mass. A malicious earl comments on this fact to the king, and urges him to 
detain her once by force. This being attempted, she takes John and her 
daughter by the hand, and "out of the roof she gan her dight," openly 
before them all. John, however, falls from the air and breaks his thigh ; but 
she and her daughter flee away, and are never again seen. The king in sorrow 
laments his loss until he dies, when Richard in his fifteenth year is proclaimed 
king. 

The above account of Richard's parentage reminds us of that 
of Alexander and Arthur, but most strikingly of that of Richard's 
fellow Crusader, the famous Godefroy de Bouillon, who was 
widely reputed to be the son of a swan-maiden. The familiar 
story of the Chevalier au Cygne appears in part in an alliterative 
English poem of the fourteenth century. Later the whole was 
printed in the prose redaction entitled Helyas, Knight of the 



— 



316 ROMANCE 



Swan. The English romance of Partenay preserves the tale of 
Melusine in the form prepared by the Poitevin La Couldrette 
about 1400 for the Dukes of Parthenay, being intended to exalt 
the house of Lusignan. The octosyllabic couplets of the French 
are turned in the English into seven-line stanzas. This version 
differs from the Latin prose account of Melusine by Jean 
d'Arras (1387), which is found in English prose. 

But the deeds of Godefroy de Bouillon were presented in an 
historical work which discarded the fabulous notion of him as 
another Lohengrin. The Siege and Conquest of Jerusalem, by 
William, Archbishop of Tyre (11 7 5-1 184), gives in the main 
reliable information on the First Crusade and the French estab- 
lishments in the Holy Land. A French version of the Latin 
text was translated by Caxton and printed by him in 148 1. 

Godefroy, Tasso's hero, was elected the chief personage of the 
Crusades. By Caxton he was considered as the world's greatest 
hero since Arthur and Charlemagne. With these two champions 
of Christianity he was associated to form the group of the three 
most valiant of their faith, to balance the three pagans, Hector, 
Alexander, and Caesar, and the three Jews, Joshua, David, and 
Judas Maccabeus, who together were regarded as the Nine 
Worthies of the world. Each of these, of course, had different 
personal traits and a different history, but in their portrayal in the 
Middle Ages the lines of distinction became gradually obscured. 
One and all the characters of romance were mediasvalised alike in 
the image of the chivalric ideal — that composite conception in 
the forming of which each had had a share. In the interesting 
fourteenth -century alliterative vision of the Parliament of the 
Three Ages, the writer takes them as his text for a homily on 
the vanity and transitoriness of human things. 

The inclusion of three Israelites among the Worthies is 
significant, for it shows how the characters of Scripture were 
viewed in the Middle Ages, how all heroes were regarded as much 
the same. The stories of the Old Testament and Apocrypha 
were popular like secular narratives, and the wonders of the Bible, 



ROMANCE 317 



the truth of which no one dared question, served to dispel any 
doubts that sceptics might have as to the achievements of modern 
men. If Joshua could make the sun stand still, why not Charle- 
magne ? If David could slay the huge Goliath, " unmesurable 
of lengthe," why not Arthur the giant of Mont St. Michel or the 
Demon Cat of Lausanne ? If Judas Maccabeus could conquer 
hostile hosts against enormous odds, why not Godefroy de 
Bouillon ? 

To these Nine Worthies, it is important to note, the Scotch 
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were disposed to add 
another : Robert Bruce, the hero of Bannockburn, corresponding 
to the constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-80), who 
likewise distinguished himself in campaigns against the English, 
and was celebrated by the French as a Tenth Worthy. In a 
Scottish Ballad of the Nine Nobles, after writing one stanza on 
each of the nine usually grouped together, the author concludes : 

Robert the Bruce through hard fighting, 
With few vanquished the mighty King 
Of England, Edward, twice in fight, 
That occupied his realm but (without) right ; 
And sometimes was set so hard 
And had not six to him toward. 
The good men that these ballads read 
Deem who doughtiest was in deed. 

Evidently there was good reason for thus associating Bruce 
with the representative heroes of mediaeval story ; for in his 
delineation by John Barbour, the only important Scottish writer 
of Chaucer's time, the colours of romance were freely employed. 
Barbour's famous poem is a very interesting illustration of the 
way in which the romantic method could be applied to the treat- 
ment of an historical theme. 

Stories to read are delitabell 
Suppose that they be nought but fable, 
Then should stories that soothfast were, 
And they were said in good manner, 
Have double plesance in hearing. 



318 ROMANCE 



So Barbour begins ; and throughout he shows his familiarity 
with the " delitabell " tales that we have here discussed. He 
made prominent those features in Bruce's career in which he 
might be thought to resemble the long celebrated worthies of the 
world, and enforced by definite comparison the likeness of his 
exploits to theirs. In picturing Bruce he exalted the best 
mediaeval principles of character and conduct : loyalty, bravery, 
and fortitude, generosity, gentleness, and respect for women — in 
sum, chivalrous nobility. 

Barbour's work will receive fuller treatment later. Here it 
need only be emphasised as an example of the way in which 
romance, by influencing the presentation of historical persons, 
helped to determine national characteristics. The Scotch would 
not have conceived Robert Bruce, or, we may add, William 
Wallace, their chief embodiments of patriotic impulse, as they 
have done for six centuries past, had not the founders of their 
literary renown been steeped in mediaeval lore. 

Late in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it may finally be 
said, romances were still greatly favoured, as is attested by the 
successful publication of such works as Clariodus, Valentine and 
Orson, Arthur of Little Britain, The Three Kings' Sons, Blan- 
candin et V Orgueilleuse d' Amour, and Paris and Vienne, "the 
which suffered many adversities because of their true love ere 
they could enjoy the effect thereof of each other." These, and 
others like them, are of a mediaeval type, but they took form 
under influences that first became potent in England during the 
Renaissance. In the reign of James I., one Richard Johnson 
wrote a fantastic narrative of the Seven Champions of Christendom : 
St. George of England, St. Denis of France, St. James of Spain, 
St. Anthony of Italy, St. Andrew of Scotland, St. Patrick of 
Ireland, St. David of Wales — and their sons — which has been 
described as "all the lies of Christendom in one lie." Richard 
Johnson also wrote The History of Tom a Lincoln, the Red Rose 
Knight-, and of the same period are the popular prose tales, 
George a Green, Pindar of Wakefield, Thomas a Reading, Dr. 



MANCE 319 



Faustus, Friar Rush, etc., which Thorns, their editor, calls the 
"Waverley Novels of the olden time." James I. of Scotland 
is said by a contemporary to have spent the night previous to 
his assassination " yn redying of romans, yn syngyng and pipyng, 
yn harpyng, and yn other honest solaces of grete plesance and 
disport." 

It is particularly the reading of romances that has led modern 
men of letters to depict the Middle Ages in very roseate colours. 
Burke must have been stimulated by a romantic conception of 
the period when he wrote the following familiar words : 

"The age of chivalry is gone — Never, never more shall we 
behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submis- 
sion, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, 
which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted 
freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of 
nations, the muse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is 
gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of 
honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage 
while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, 
and under which vice itself loses half its evil by losing all its 
grossness." 



CHAPTER VI 



The most delightful and abiding literature of the Middle Ages 
is narrative. Didactic and moral treatises have for us mainly 
the interest of curiosity, histories are ill-conceived and inexact, 
fine lyrics are rare, the drama is in its swaddling-clothes ; but 
everywhere the story reigns. It may be popular ballad or 
chanson de geste, chivalrous lay or romance, legends of " Cupid's 
Saints" or of worthies of the Church, secular or religious 
allegory, fabliau or fable — everywhere, not only in separate form, 
but in an infinitude of combinations, the story appears holding an 
unquestioned sway. 

We have studied in detail the productions termed romance, 
extended stories of adventure and love, of feudalism and chivalry. 
We now turn to the other types of narrative that found literary 
embodiment in the mediaeval period, and shall try to discover what 
was their nature, where they originated, how they were perpetu- 
ated, and in what mould they were made. Final results in these 
inquiries are too much to expect. From time immemorial people 
everywhere have told tales, and no continent or race has had 
the exclusive power to produce them. The more we know of the 
matter, the more we are amazed at the peregrinations of popular 
saga. We are baffled at the uniformity of men's conceptions. 
In treating oral tradition, complete knowledge of what has hap- 
pened is impossible to obtain. 

320 



TALES 321 



Oriental Tales 

It appears certain, however, that many tales popular in the 
West originated in the East. Three at least of the Canterbury 
Tales are Oriental in character: the Pardoner's account of the 
three rioters directed by Death to a hidden supply of gold, in the 
endeavour to gain which each loses his life (compare Kipling's 
tale of The King's Ankus) ; the Merchant's pear-tree story ; and 
that of the Manciple, concerning Phoebus and the speaking crow. 
In no case is the direct source evident. 

Dame Sirith is an Oriental tale, which was put into English 
verse before the death of Henry III. It relates how, while a 
merchant is absent at the fair in Boston, his wife rejects the 
advances of a clerk, but is later brought to yield to her lover 
by the wiles of a female Pandar called Sirith, who makes her 
victim fear transformation into a dog — a situation that indicates 
at bottom the Indian belief in metempsychosis. The story is told 
in a clever, jovial manner, with much realism and piquancy, in a 
style almost worthy of Chaucer, yet a century before his time. 

Similar in character is Adam Cobsam's entertaining tale of 
The Wright's Chaste Wife (fifteenth century), which narrates 
how three associates, a lord, his steward, and the proctor of the 
parish church, try to win the love of the Wright's wife, but are 
trapped by her into a cellar and made to spin flax to get food, 
until they are finally freed under humiliating circumstances. The 
Wright wore a garland of roses which would remain fresh as long 
as his wife was chaste. It was to test the virtue of this talisman 
that each of the three suitors tried to bribe the lady to his desires. 
This tale in one or other feature of the chastity-test arid the gulled 
lovers has many parallels : one is reminded in the first part of 
the magic horn of Caradoc in the ballad-fabliau of the Mantle- 
Made- Amiss, and the girdle of Florimel in Spenser ; in the second, 
not only of many Eastern tales (one in The Arabian Nights), but 
also of the Decameron (ix. 1), Lydgate's Lady Prioress and her 



322 TALES chap. 

Three Wooers, the French fabliau Constant du Hamel, and the 
old tale of The Friar Well-Fitted. 

In Sir Amadace we have an admirable legendary tale em- 
bodying the world-wide belief in " the thankful dead." It turns 
on the law (that Herodotus tells us existed among the Egyptians) 
by which a creditor might deny his debtor the rights of decent 
burial. Emphasis is laid upon the virtue of fulfilling troth 
plighted, in a way that recalls the Franklin's Tale. 

It is interesting to observe that the story of Dame Sirith was 
transformed by a contemporary into an "interlude," De Clerico et 
Puella, fragmentarily preserved. A parallel to the tale was put 
into a German fastnachtspiel by Hans Sachs. The themes of 
The Wright's Chaste Wife and Sir Amadace appeared later in 
Massinger's Picture and Fatal Doivry. 

Sometimes tales of shrewdness and wit took on the guise of 
romance. In Sir Cleges, a short poem of the fourteenth century, 
the events are placed in the reign of King Uter, though the 
hero is very unlike Crestien's of the same name, or any British 
knight. 

While the hero is kneeling under a cherry tree in his garden at Christmas- 
time, having abated his misery by humble prayer, his head catches a bough 
on which he discovers delicious fruit. Greatly astonished, he bears some to 
his wife, Dame Clarys, and at her suggestion takes a basket the next day to 
the king at Cardiff. Because of his poor array, he is unable to approach the 
king, until he promises to porter, usher, and steward each in turn a third of 
the present he expects. Recognising, however, that all is disposed of in 
advance, he takes a witty way of accomplishing revenge. When the delighted 
Uter asks him to name his own reward, he asks for twelve strokes ; and these 
he then dispenses to the grasping steward and his fellows, much to the 
merriment of the court. 

On a French prose romance was based the long-winded Tale 
of Beryn, written in English early in the fifteenth century by an 
anonymous author, who, like Lydgate, foolishly tried to continue 
the Canterbury Tales. He explains in a prologue how the 
pilgrims occupied themselves at Canterbury, and then represents 



TALES 323 



the merchant as telling the tale before us as the first on the 
return journey. 

The main incidents picture the wilful, perverse youth, Beryn, in False- 
town, a prey to sharpers, only extricating himself from serious trouble by 
the aid of a helpful cripple, who turns the table on his evil persecutors by 
countercharges of wit. Beryn, for example, loses a game of chess to a 
burgess, and as a result has the alternative of drinking all the salt water in 
the sea or of forfeiting his ships. The cripple, appearing in his defence at 
the prosecution, agrees that Beryn shall drink the salt water, but first requires 
that all the fresh water running into the sea be separated from it. Again he 
confounds another rascal who has induced Beryn to exchange his five ships 
for five loads of what he can find in a certain house. The house appears 
empty when they enter, but the cripple lets loose two butterflies in it, and 
secures heavy damages because the prosecutor cannot secure five ship-loads of 
these to justify the bargain. 



Fabliaux 

Occasionally of Oriental origin are the merry tales in verse 
known as "fabliaux," which were immensely popular in the 
Middle Ages. Arising in France about the middle of the twelfth 
century, they enjoyed particular favour in the thirteenth, and 
maintained themselves for a good while after. They were never 
taken very seriously as works of literature. The writers, almost 
all of whom are unknown, were not bent on exalting themselves 
in the eyes of posterity. Though only a few fabliaux are extant 
in English verse, it is certain that many were composed. This 
was not the sort of production to be carefully transcribed; it 
did not need writing to be remembered. 

The fabliaux offer a striking contrast to legends and romances. 
They are not chivalric and courtly, but bourgeois and rough ; they 
picture the real and practical, not the ideal or sentimental ; their 
primary object is to evoke laughter, to stimulate jovial inter- 
course at close range ; they are not necessarily vile, but they 
do not inculcate ethics ; their satire is amiable, their moral 
waggish. They are, moreover, short and to the point ; no detailed 



324 TALES 



descriptions or long-drawn-out discussions ever disturb the rapid 
advance of the story : the reader finds himself in the middle of 
things and hears no more than enough. Characteristic, further- 
more, is their attitude towards women. The fair lady heroines 
of romance are supercilious, haughty, cruel, when they wish, but 
valiant warriors delight to serve them ; they are all endowed 
with virtue and charm ; their worship is an established and 
honourable cult. In the fabliaux, on the contrary, women are 
universally pictured as deceivers, sure to be unfaithful to their 
husbands if given a chance, ill-tempered, vain, nagging, thorns 
in the side of submissive men — a necessary evil. The cynic 
replaces the devotee. Guillaume de Lorris yields to Jean de 
Meung. 

If one would reconstruct mediaeval society accurately, if one 
would learn of the actual surroundings and occupations of the 
majority of the people, the fabliaux deserve at least as careful 
consideration as any other type of mediaeval literature. Chaucer 
felt obliged to relate some of them to portray suitably certain 
classes of his time. Then in the real world were as marked 
contrasts as appear in his tales. The vulgarly coarse elbowed the 
over-refined, materialists moved with mystics, the lewd bowed 
to the learned, the subservient churl scraped before a haughty 
lord. The juxtaposition of the " noble story " of Palamon and 
Arcite with the vulgar anecdotes of the Miller and the Reeve, the 
tale of the Prioress with that of the Shipman, the Manciple's with 
the Parson's, pictured the strange associations of ordinary life ; 
and their tales the unlike predilection of unlike people. Say what 
one will of the churlishness or obscenity of the fabliaux that 
Chaucer chose to repeat, the poet makes clear that they pleased 
the pilgrims. Of the Miller's ribald tale, he remarks : 

Diverse folk diversely they seyde ; 

But for the moste part, they loughe and pleyde, 

Ne at this tale I saugh no man him greve, — 

save only the Reeve, who resented it because the joke was on 



TALES 325 



a carpenter, a man of his own trade. When, moreover, he 
retorted in kind ("and harlotrye they tolden bothe two"), he 
gave such satisfaction that the cook " for joy . . . clawed him 
on the back." 

The earliest extant English fabliau (if such it may be called) 
is a short poem of the thirteenth century entitled The Land of 
Cokaygne, which anticipates Chaucer in the good-humoured, if 
somewhat coarse, satire one finds in "the Summoner's Tale. Here 
Cokaygne it represented as the monk's Utopia, a land for gluttons 
and lechers, contrasting with the dull and monotonous Paradise. 
The author probably borrowed his idea from a French description 
of the place, though the conception of an elysium as a land of 
idleness dates from antiquity and is found everywhere. It may 
be that he was stimulated to his production by personal observa- 
tions in familiar monasteries : certain scenes realistically portrayed 
suggest definite allusion to local disorders. The poem doubtless 
stirred many to laughter, without, we fear, leading them to mend 
their ways. 

Preserved as early as in the Auchinleck MS. (1330-40) is 
the Pennyworth of Wit, or How a Merchant did his Wife Betray, 
which served to show how a man can be " penny wise and 
pound foolish." 

A merchant who has neglected his wife for a fascinating mistress, is given 
by the former a penny with which to purchase wit abroad. For this he gets 
advice how to test his lemman's devotion, in contrast to his wife's. To the 
former he comes in apparent distress, and is cast out ; while the latter takes 
pains to comfort him. He recovers the rich presents he has bestowed on 
the fair shrew, and transfers them to his faithful spouse, as a return for her 
penny. They live afterwards happily together. 

Of Chaucer's Reeve's Tale we have another English version, 
The Milier of Abyngdon (in tail-rhyme strophes), extant also in 
two Old French, two German, and one Latin form, as well as 
in the Decameron (ix. 6). Like nearly all the English fabliaux, 
Chaucer's poem is derived from a French source. La Fontaine 
drew his version from Boccaccio. 



326 TALES 



Other " merry jests " in English verse are The Friar and the 
Boy : how the latter, provided with a magic pipe, made a friar 
dance ludicrously on conspicuous occasions, and how his step- 
mother also suffered to her shame ; How a Sergeant would learn 
to be a Friar, but got a beating for his deceit ; Dan Hugh Monk 
of Leicester, how he was four times slain and once hanged ; How 
the Plowman learned his Paternoster, being required to remember 
in right order the names of forty poor folk, who one after another 
applied for corn : the last was called Amen ; the Tale of the 
Basin, how the priest Sir John and his paramour got caught in 
the act of love-making : the bowl was enchanted so that any hand 
that touched it stuck fast ; soon it was surrounded by various 
folk who could not get free until the charm was reversed — in one 
form or another a very widespread and amusing narrative. 

Perhaps with the idea of parodying chivalric poems, or of 
burlesquing knightly practices, were written in the fifteenth 
century The Tournament of Totenham, The Felon Son and the 
Friars of Richmond, and The Hunting of the Hare. In the last 
a whole community of common people are represented on a 
ridiculous hunt, which ends with rough dispute. 

The fabliaux were in verse, but they were destined to be 
turned into prose, and amalgamated with stories of the same 
character to form "jest-books," which were very popular in Shak- 
spere's time. It was doubtless by imitation of the Tfecameron 
that an anonymous writer compiled the book of A Hmdred Merry 
Tales, with which the names of John Heywood and Sir Thomas 
More have been connected. Certainly Heywood borrowed much 
from like jovial narratives, whether in the form of fabliaux or of 
the farces into which they sometimes developed. 

Pious Tales 

Attention may next be called to the large group of pious tales, 
contes devots, similar in scope and presentation to the fabliaux, but 
differently inspired — tales religious in nature, written to edify, to 



vi TALES 327 

encourage and support in righteous living — the work of monks 
or clerks. These tales relied on credulity ; they fostered 
superstition ; they are sometimes puerile, absurd, even gross ; but 
the writers, there can be no doubt, were in general sincere and 
zealous for good. Quite as much as any other body of narra- 
tive literature, they may be treated as genuine social records, 
reflecting actual conditions in the different ages of their composi- 
tion and revision. Their value in the age of their writing is not 
to be measured by their purely literary excellence, or by the 
present power of the religious ideas they once conveyed. 

Most numerous are the so-called Miracles of Our Lady. Only 
a few are extant in English in comparison with the large numbers 
once written. In the Vernon MS. but nine are preserved of 
a collection of forty-two; Barbour's sixty-six are all gone. Of 
those in the former group the most conspicuous perhaps are 
some that were calculated to stir up enmity against the Jews. 
One of these tells how a Jew put his son into a burning oven 
because he communed with Christian children at Easter, and 
how the brands were as a bed of flowers to him by the care of 
the Virgin. Another is of the young scholar who so exasperated 
certain Jews by his singing of Altna Redemptoris Mater that they 
murdered him and concealed his body, but to their own shame ; 
for the crime was discovered and the boy miraculously restored — 
a tale, it will- be remembered, that Chaucer repeats with tenderness. 

There was no limit to the solicitude of the Virgin for those 
who served her. Even the greatest sinners might hope for her 
help, if they did not forget their Ave Marias. For this reason 
she saved a thief who had been three days hanged, an incontinent 
monk after he had been drowned, and other distressed penitents 
in serious peril. 

A Good Knight and his Jealous Wife tells how the former admitted to his 
lady that he loved another (meaning the Virgin) more than her, and how the 
wife's jealousy was raised by the devil so that she slew herself and her 
children. But the knight's devotion to the Virgin led to the restoration of 
all to life ; the devils' exultation was turned to grief when they were roundly 



328 TALES chap. 

scourged by the angels. This the poem teaches : ' ' There shall no man 
sikerly do aught for our dear lady, but he shall have his meed." The Kriight 
and his Wife also reveals the Virgin opposing the wiles of the devil, rescuing 
a culprit in spiritual peril. The knight in extreme poverty pledges his wife 
to Satan in return for large gifts. When, unwitting of harm, she is con- 
ducted to the tryst, she insists on entering a chapel to pray, and there falls 
asleep before the altar. Shortly after she seems to reappear and the knight 
rides on to the meeting. But the devil recognises that the lady in his pre- 
sence is the Virgin and makes off in angry dismay. Mary gives the man 
wholesome advice, which he afterwards follows. They find the lady still 
asleep on their return, unaware of what has happened in her behalf. In' 
various other semblances (as a midwife, for example) Mary was thought to 
appear, to give solace or circumvent the shape-shifting fiend. 

To inculcate the value of penance, many pious tales are 
told. The Hermit and the Outlaw gives an account of an " errant 
thief" who haunted the wild wood-shaws, and how he and his 
pious brother were diversely brought to the bliss of paradise. 

One Good Friday the outlaw sees various penitents going barefoot to 
church, and joins their company. Moved by the vicar's sermon, he inquires 
what he shall do to be saved. One after another, however, he rejects the 
hard penances suggested, but at last accepts what he thinks an easy one. 
The vicar, guided by heaven, asks him what he hates most, and the outlaw 
replies " to drink water," whereupon the holy man agrees to absolve him if 
he goes without water for a day. The outlaw departs merrily, but is soon 
overcome by a terrible thirst. The devil in the disguise of winsome wenches 
several times offers him to drink, but he keeps his vow. Finally, in despair, 
he cuts a vein to quench his thirst, and bleeds to death. Angels then appear 
with song and shout and carry his soul to heaven. The hermit sees the 
happy throng as they pass his abode, and marvels exceedingly. If this, he 
murmurs, is the way to get to heaven, he will abandon his asceticism and be 
an outlaw too. But an angel reproves him sternly, and shows him that he 
must persevere as he has begun. In the end he shares his brother's bliss. 

References to the pestilence in England show that this inter- 
esting poem (in tail -rhyme strophes) was written in the third 
quarter of the fourteenth century. It is a combination of two 
tales, both then current as exempla. The teaching is evidently 
that " there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth 
than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance." 



VI TALES 329 

The first part is plainly akin to the charming Old French story of 
the Chevalier au Barizel, concerning another "easy penance." 

A lord, having refused all other suggestions of the priest to whom he 
comes on a Good Friday in a haughty mood, at last undertakes for shrift to 
fill a bucket with water at a brook near the hermit's refuge. When he finds 
that no water will go into the bucket there, he vows not to rest until it is filled. 
For a year he wanders restlessly, but to no avail. The bucket still remains 
empty, when the next Good Friday he humbly seeks the hermit again. The 
good man shows him the folly of his pride. And the first tear of true 
repentance that the knight lets fall fills the bucket to overflowing. Angels 
carry his soul to heaven the same day. 

On the other hand, the merit of sincere repentance as a 
means of blotting out even the blackest guilt is emphasised to our 
distaste and disapproval in the Tale of the Incestuous Daughter, 
who, after a long succession of horrible crimes, is redeemed just 
before death. Apparently it was not thought well to give such 
penitents a chance to err again. 

The virtue of good deeds, the advantage of supporting the 
Church, the efficacy of masses for the departed, are all illustrated 
by the tale of The Child of Bristow, which narrates how a 
covetous father, who on earth did ill and neglected his religious 
duties, was saved from the pains of hell by the self-sacrifice of 
his son, who restored his sire's ill-gotten gains to those he had 
injured and said trentals of masses for his soul. The son's piety 
gained him unexpected reward. 

In this connection, though it might also be grouped with the 
didactic dialogues or visions, may be mentioned the story of The 
Ghost of Guy, an English poem of the second quarter of the 
fourteenth century, drawn from the Latin. It is a miracle of a 
great French burgess whose spirit appeared shortly after his death 
to the prior, and answered his numerous questions concerning 
the hereafter, especially the state of purgatory. Here also the 
virtue of masses for the dead is shown by the spirit's declaration 
of relief thereby. 

Grotesqueness is sometimes the main characteristic of these 



33Q TALES 



contes devots. The Smith and his Dame, for example, could surely 
have had no attraction for the refined, though its comic situations 
may have made it popular among the common folk. 

It relates how the Lord, to subdue the pride of a boastful Smith, shows 
His own superior power by forging the Smith's hideous old mother-in-law into 
a beautiful woman, and how the Smith tries to do the same for his wife. 
When, despite her struggles (more vehement than those of Noah's wife in the 
mystery), her spouse forces her into the fire and has made her unrecognisable 
by his hammering, she is restored to life and fairness by the Lord, to whom 
the Smith must needs appeal in humility. 

The preservation of one pious tale in the Auchinleck MS. 
shows how early they were put into English, but most of the 
class are extant only in late forms. At the Reformation they 
were frowned out of repute. Nevertheless, their vogue had been 
immense, their influence evades calculation. If one would 
understand the mystery-plays fully, one should study along with 
them the ideas, style, and provenience of these popular tales. 

Beast-Fables, Beast-Epics, and Bestiaries 

Among all savage folk beast-tales abound. Aboriginal man, 
disregarding the essential differences between himself and what 
we call lower animals, ascribed to them his own nature, and told 
tales in which beasts appeared with sentiments and qualities 
like his own. In accord with the animistic philosophy of the 
uncivilised, stories of beasts, whether in origin mythical or 
totemistic, are found much alike in all parts of the world. These 
tales, however, first concern the student of literature when they 
are told with a purpose and moralised into fables. Beast-fables 
have had a long and important history. Among the earliest pro- 
ductions of the class were those of the Indians and Greeks. The 
chief Indian collections are known as the/a/ahas, or Buddhist Birth 
Tales, composed about 400 B.C., though not put into their present 
form till as late perhaps as 500 a.d. Many of these were used in 
the famous Fables of Bidpai, and are to be found likewise in the 



vi TALES 331 

Panchatantra, a Buddhistic book of instruction for noble youth. 
Indian fables were perpetuated by the Greeks and added to 
from their own independent supply. The Greek collection most 
familiar to us is that which goes under the name of ^Esop, a 
personage of whom nothing exact is known. Many, however, of 
the fables now known as ^Esop's are merely paraphrases of the 
Greek mythiambi of the third-century Roman Babrius, known to 
the West through the incomplete Latin translation of Avianus 
if. 380). 

The most noteworthy Latin collection, also based on one in 
Greek, was that of Phaedrus, many of whose fables circulated in 
the West in a redaction which bore the name of Romulus, the 
work purporting to have been prepared by an emperor of that 
name for the instruction of his son. It did not derive from 
^Esop, as it claimed, but from Phaedrus, with whose fables were 
combined others that have a mediaeval stamp. This Latin prose 
collection appears to have taken shape first in England in the 
eleventh century, and was apparently soon translated into the 
vernacular. One form of the English translation was utilised by 
Marie de France as the basis of her book of over a hundred 
fables, known as the Ysopet. The composition of this English 
source was attributed to King Alfred, but evidently only to 
heighten its authority. Various other Ysopets were composed in 
French later, both in England and on the Continent, as well as 
other versions of the Romulus in Latin. About 11 80 the English 
Cistercian Odo of Sheriton (Wales?) gathered from various 
sources, and moralised, a Latin prose collection, which was 
much used by his countrymen. 

No Middle English book of fables appeared, until Lydgate, 
probably while a youth at Oxford, began one on the model of 
that of Marie de France. The seven fables he tells, and their 
prologue, together occupy about 900 lines, and are written in the 
Troilus stanza. Beside Marie's, Lydgate may have known a Latin 
version, and he indulged himself somewhat in learned allusion 
and digression. Meanwhile, however, a few stray fables had 



332 TALES 



become conspicuous in English poems, as, for example, that of 
"belling the cat," which Langland allegorised so effectively in 
1377, and that of "The Fox and the Fisher" in Barbojir's Bruce. 
Into example -books and other didactic works a goodly number 
likewise found their way. A fable — that of the bird in borrowed 
plumage — lies at the basis of Holland's Buke of the Howlate 
(145 1). In Scotland, by far the most artistic fables extant are 
the thirteen of Henryson (1470-80), which reveal considerable 
independence and power of poetic treatment. Henryson appears 
to have used the Latin verse collection that was printed by 
Wynkyn de Worde, as Esopi Fabtilae, in 1504. Caxton's book 
of fables (1494) is based on a French translation of the Aesopus 
of the German Steinhowel, collected and translated by him about 
1480. SteinhowePs collection comes from several sources, a large 
part from Romulus and Avianus, and a portion from the Greek 
text, which had recently been printed in Italy. It was reserved 
for La Fontaine (1621-95) to gi ye fables an abiding place in the 
literature of the world. His example was followed in England 
by Gay (1685- 1732), but with less success. 

A special creation of the Middle Ages was what is known as 
the beast-epic, wherein we see animals typifying human beings, 
and behaving like them. Little by little separate allegorised 
tales were brought together to form the Romance of Reynard 
the Fox, a satirical picture of society as viewed by the middle 
classes, a very witty parody on the conventions and complications 
of ordinary life. 

Originating perhaps as a semi -didactic work in Flanders, 
taking literary shape in Latin works of the twelfth century, it 
became, about n 80, a sort of popular epic in Germany, and in 
France a romance with many so-called "branches." On the basis 
of a French version, a Fleming named Willem, about the middle 
of the thirteenth century, composed a very striking poem, the 
Roman van den Vos Reinarde, which was afterwards remodelled 
and amplified in different redactions, and finally appeared in Low 
German prose towards the close of the fifteenth century. Caxton 



VI TALES 333 

translated and printed one of the late prose versions in 148 1. 
Goethe's Reinecke Fuchs is the most famous modern embodiment 
of the theme. 

The Roman de Renart is certainly a captivating work, full 
of good-humoured fun and sly suggestion. Men's foibles are 
laid bare in the actions of animals, with extraordinary keenness 
of perception and not over-serious satire. Here we have the 
mediaeval bourgeoisie at its best, shrewd but amiable, sensible but 
merry, conscious of its growing power and awakened to inde- 
pendent sentiment, but not disposed to sneer. Light-heartedly 
the common people of France bore the ills of life, and laughed 
away discomfort. They forgot their own afflictions while applaud- 
ing wit. 

Reynard is the centre of the little epic. His name is derived 
from the German Reinhardt, meaning " strong in counsel," and he 
justifies it by his conduct. His cunning is surpassing, his audacity 
superb. Associated with him are other animals with equally 
characteristic traits, all individualised by name and description, 
and yet all representative of types. Even now, not only Reynard, 
but also Chauntecleer and Bruin, will call up definite images to 
most readers. The framework of the stories, the costuming 
and the like, are imitations of serious romance. The per- 
sonages indulge in mock-heroics, and voice the sober sentiments 
of men. 

The French in England, being mostly of the upper classes, 
favoured the aristocratic romances, and did much to extend their 
sway ; but, so far as we can tell, they did not participate in the 
production of the Romatice of Reynard. And the Saxon middle 
classes for the most part either aped the taste of the nobility or 
were satisfied with rude accounts of fight and vulgar jests. They 
lacked the delicate, insinuating, restrained wit of the Gaul across 
the Channel. At their best they evoked the ballads of Robin 
Hood. 

Odo of Sheriton shows acquaintance with the Reynard epic : 
his animals are called Isengrim, Reynard, Teburgus (Titr-theCat), 



334 TALES 



etc. ; but with the exception of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, only 
one section. of the Romance, it seems, was put into English — that, 
however, very skilfully, in a poem entitled The Fox and the Wolf. 
The anonymous author does not treat his material with the 
independence of his great successor, but clearly and with strong 
effect. 

One day Reynard emerges from the wood very hungry. " Him were 
liefer meet one hen than half a hundred women," and he hopes to gratify his 
taste. Entering an enclosure, he sees a cock seated on a perch with his 
hens beside him. He has an amusing discussion with Chauntecleer, but is 
unable to persuade him to descend. Being sore athirst, he then makes his 
way to a well, where are two buckets, so arranged that when one goes down 
the other goes up. He leaps into one to get a drink, and down it moves. All 
his thirst vanishes ; the water seems to him to stink. He sees he is caught, 
and begins to weep. Then draws near his neighbour, the wolf Sigrim, also 
famished. He hears Reynard's cries, and inquires the cause of his condition. 
The witty fox declares that he is enjoying the bliss of Paradise — no pain, no 
care, no work, no hunger, or other woe. In laughter, the wolf inquires 
whether his friend is dead ; only three days ago he dined at his house. 
"No," says the fox, "but I have abandoned the sorrowful world, and come 
down here where all is joy, and where there is plenty to eat." This stirs the 
wolf, who begs to be allowed to join him. " Well," replies Reynard, " were 
you well shriven, and determined to live a pure life, I would pray that you 
might be permitted to come hither." The wolf recounts his sins to the fox, 
who acts as confessor, even the sin he has committed against the latter in 
cherishing towards him ill-will because he has seen him too familiar with his 
wife. The fox pardons him, and bids him, if he would have the bliss of 
heaven, enter the other bucket. Down goes the wolf, up goes the fox. They 
meet on the way. Reynard bids his neighbour farewell ; he is glad he has 
come to a clean life ; he will have masses said for his soul. Poor Sigrim finds 
nothing to eat. " Frogs had kneaded his dough." His hunger presses, and 
he curses the fox. But the latter pays no attention, and makes off in glee. 
The friars, proprietors of the place, arise to sing matins. The chief steward 
goes out to the well for water, draws up the bucket, sees the grim wolf within, 
takes him for the devil, and sounds an alarm. 

Well and wroth he was y-swung, 
With staves and spears he was y-stung ; 
The fox bikerd (deceived) him, mid y-wis, 
For he ne found no kind of bliss, 
Nor of dints forgiveness. 



VI TALES 335 

In the author of this poem we have a worthy predecessor of 
Chaucer, who also found in some epic story of the Reynard cycle 
material for the sparkling tale of the Nun's Priest. The story is 
too familiar to need repetition here. As witnesses to an epic source 
have been cited the dream, the proper names of Chauntecleer and 
Pertelote, the specific description of the proprietress of the cock, 
and of the yard with its fence or hedge, the dialogue between 
the cock and the hen after the dream, and the lament of the hens. 
These are not to be found in the popular beast-fable on which it 
was long thought to be directly founded. But only about one- 
third of the tale is drawn from epic fable tradition. The humour 
that dazzles and delights us throughout is Chaucer's own. That 
in his original there was a tendency towards what is known as the 
" anthropomorphic " style, we may well believe. But the poet's 
developments are happy in the extreme. He manages to invest 
his characters with strange dignity, and to make the situation 
bewilderingly real and dramatic. No feeling of incongruity dis- 
turbs our enjoyment of the situation. Yet Pertelote is as 
" difficult " as the supercilious ladies of romance, equally charm- 
ing and fair. Likewise Chauntecleer is as gay and fresh as a 
squire, as gallant and nattering as a troubadour. And withal of 
insinuating wit. In Chaucer's hands the Reynard epic might 
have attained its finest form had he chosen to treat it as a whole ; 
for in his temper were the qualities of those who first endowed it 
with real life. 

From early times books on the fabulous natures and qualities 
of animals, provided with moral or mystical interpretation, were 
familiar in England. They are all based on a religious document, 
the so-called Physiologus, that arose among the Christians of 
Alexandria, and soon became popular far and wide. First 
current in Greek, it was later turned into Latin, and thence into 
the vernaculars of the West. The oldest version in a Germanic 
language is the Anglo-Saxon poem on The Panther and the Whale 
(perhaps it told also of the Partridge), a work of considerable 
poetic merit. Far less important from a literary point of view 



336 TALES chaP. 

are the Bestiaire of the Anglo-Norman Philippe de Thaiin, written 
for Queen Adelaide shortly after 1121, and that of the Norman 
Guillaume le Clerc, which appeared after 12 10. The Middle 
English Bestiary is an anonymous work of the early part of the 
thirteenth century, comprising some 800 lines in varying metre. 
It is based in the main on a Latin Physiologus, by one Theobald, 
but its style is much less dry and dull. In addition to the 
original twelve sections on the lion, eagle, adder, ant, hart, fox, 
spider, whale, merman, elephant, turtle, panther, it has another 
(probably taken from Alexander Neckham's De Naturis Reruni) 
on the culver, or dove, whose seven properties are interpreted 
morally. 

To illustrate the nature of the book, we may take the passages 
on the lion and the elephant : 

The lion stands on a hill, and if he hear a man hunt, or by his nose-smell 
scent his approach, by whatever way he descends to the dale he fills all his 
footsteps after him, draws dust with his tail wherever he steps, either dust or 
dew, so that he (the hunter) cannot find him. Another " nature " he has, when 
he is born : the lion lies still and stirs not from sleep till the sun has shone 
about him thrice ; then his father rouses him with his roaring. The third 
custom the lion hath, when he lies to sleep, he is said never to close the lids 
of his eyes. 

Signification : Well high is that hill that is the kingdom of heaven. Our 
Lord is the lion who liveth thereabove. Yet when it pleased Him to alight here 
on earth, the devil might never know though he hunted Him secretly how He 
came down, nor how He dwelt in that mild maiden, Mary by name, who bore 
Him to the profit of men. When our Lord was dead and buried, as His will 
was, He lay still in a stone till the third day. His Father aided Him, so that 
He rose then from the dead to keep us alive. According to His pleasure, He 
watches as a shepherd for his flock. He is shepherd ; we are sheep. He will 
shield us if we obey His word, so that we go nowhere astray. 

Elephants live in India, like great mountains in body. They go together 
in the jungle like sheep coming out of the fold. . . . They have no joints to 
get up with. How this animal rests, when he walks far — hearken, how it 
tells here ; for he is all unwieldly. Truly, he seeks a strong and steadfast 
tree, and leans against it confidently, when he is weary of walking. The 
hunter, having noticed where his best resort is, to do his will, saws this tree, 
and underprops it as best he can, conceals his act well, that the elephant is 



vi TALES 337 

not aware of it when he returns. He himself sits alone, and watches whether 
his trick shall 'avail him aught. Then comes this unwieldly elephant, and 
leans upon his side, sleeps by the tree in the shadow, and so both fall together. 
If no man is there when he falls, he roars and calls for help, roars ruefully in 
his manner, hoping to get help to rise. Then comes an animal there, hopes 
to cause him to stand up, strives and struggles with all his might ; but he can 
accomplish it no whit. He can do then nothing else than roar with his 
brother. Many and mickle come running there, strive to raise him ; but for 
all their help he may not get up. Then they roar all with one roar like the 
blast of a horn, or the sound of a bell. For their mickle roaring, a youngling 
comes running, bends quickly to him, puts his snout under him, and with the 
help of them all he raises the elephant erect — who thus escapes this hunter's 
trap, in the wise that I have described. 

Signification : Thus fell Adam through a tree — our first father. That we 
feel. Moses wished to raise him ; no one might accomplish it. After Moses, 
all the prophets ; no one might raise him where he stood before, to have the 
good kingdom of heaven. They sighed and sorrowed, and were in thought 
how they might help him up. They all roared with one voice, all on high to 
heaven. For their care and their calling, Christ, the king of heaven, came to 
them, became man here, and thus was little, suffered death in our manhood, 
and thus He went under Adam, raised him up, and mankind, that had fallen 
to dark hell. 

" Glosyng is a full glorious thing certeyn," we can but remark. 
Yet, absurd as most of the Physiologies undoubtedly is, its 
immense influence on all sorts of writing, as well as on symbolic 
sculpture and painting, makes it a book worth careful considera- 
tion. The notions that it contains were perpetuated in much 
secular and religious allegory, particularly of the thirteenth century. 



Collections 

A desire clearly manifest in the Middle Ages was to have all 
knowledge and all material of uplifting import and literary enter- 
tainment accessible in compact form. It did not remain for us in 
modern times to invent manuals, compendiums, corpuses, books 
of selections, dictionaries of mythology and biography, and 
encyclopedias. All these existed in abundance centuries before 
printing was discovered. 

z 



338 TALES chap. 

We remember how in very early times ecclesiastics made 
collections of sermons, lives of the Church fathers and of the 
saints, martyrologies and legendaries, as well as various " sums " 
of theological and ethical teaching. We have seen how fables 
were gathered together, fabliaux united in jest-books, and pious 
tales zealously amassed. Now we must consider certain other 
collections of narrative and biography that were prepared with a 
more or less serious didactic purpose. 

Among these, two classes should be kept distinct — one in which 
the different sections simply follow one another without intimate 
bonds of union, and another in which the transitions between them 
are marked in order to produce a general effect. On the one 
hand we have, to take illustrations only from Chaucer's works, 
the Monk's Tale and the Legend of Good Women, where accounts 
of famous personages are given separately in succession ; and on 
the other, the whole body of the Canterbury Tales, where each is 
but part of a great whole, bound to what precedes and follows by 
skilfully constructed connecting-links. Both styles of composi- 
tion long antedate Chaucer. The best examples of the simple 
collective system exist in Latin works and exhibit no particular 
talent of compilation. The most famous of the story-books that 
show skill in suggestive union originated in the East. 

Of the former group the Gesta Romanorum may be taken as a 
type. When and where this important work originated are 
matters still unsettled. But the date of the collection cannot be 
far from the close of the thirteenth century ; and for the idea an 
Englishman seems to deserve the credit. To be sure, the 
number of the stories and the make-up were greatly altered in 
Continental redactions, and these were the only ones to be 
printed in early times ; but this was due to the fact that they 
were the most accessible to the printers. When thus imported 
into England they superseded the native redactions, which were 
insufficient by comparison. 

The original purpose of the Gesta Romanorum was to provide 
for the clergy a supply of tales for homiletic instruction. At 



TALES 339 



first this object was never lost sight of. To every story a 
moral was attached, and this the compiler considered as very 
important. Such tales, then, were chosen as could suitably be 
allegorised. It must be said, however, that this was no great 
restriction ; for the ingenious clerk could find a moral in any 
narrative, and even the lewdest story could be turned to account. 
One example, The Tree that Bore Good Fruit, will indicate 
sufficiently well how far-fetched the symbolism of the inter- 
pretation might be. 

Valerius tells us that a man named Paletinus one day burst into tears, and, 
calling his son and his neighbours around him, said : "Alas! alas! I have now 
growing in my garden a fatal tree, on which my poor first wife hanged herself, 
then my second, and after that my third. Have I not therefore cause for 
wretchedness?" "Truly," said one, who was called Arrius, "I marvel that 
you should weep at such unusual good fortune ! Give me, I pray you, two or 
three sprigs of that gentle tree, which I will divide with my neighbours, and 
thereby enable every man to indulge his spouse." Paletinus complied with 
his friend's request, and ever after found this tree the most productive part of 
: his estate. 

Application : My beloved, the tree is the cross of Christ. The man's three 
wives are pride, lust of the heart, and lust of the eyes, which ought to be 
thus suspended and destroyed. He who solicited a part of the tree is any 
good Christian. 

This tale, told by Cicero in his De Oratore, was evidently 
of the sort that would justify its insertion in a book bearing 
the title Gesta Romanorum : at first perhaps the collection con- 
sisted largely, or exclusively, of such events as were said to have 
happened in Roman times. Later, however, material was added 
from every source, from secular and ecclesiastical traditions, from 
books of natural history, fables, and chronicles. Often the tales 
contrast markedly in spirit and tone, in localisation and age. 
This variety, however, preserved them from monotony, and made 
them a pleasant resource to men in any mood. 

It was in the Latin form that the united stories of the Gesta 
were chiefly current. But in time they were turned into the 
vernacular, and thus made more widely familiar. We have three 



340 TALES 



manuscripts of an English translation that was probably made in 
the reign of Henry VI. Soon after 1510, Wynkyn de Worde 
published an edition containing forty-three stories; and in 1577 
an Elizabethan hack-writer, Richard Robinson, made another, 
which was reprinted frequently, and passed into everybody's 
hands. That Shakspere knew the Gesta there can be little 
doubt. It included the stories of the Merchant of Venice, Lear, 
and Pericles. Indeed, many prominent English writers from 
Gower to Walpole made use of it, and on the Continent men as 
different in time and spirit as Boccaccio and Schiller. 

Boccaccio, though famed now chiefly as the writer of the 
Decameron, won great repute among his contemporaries as the 
author of learned manuals, and among these were two, the De 
Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illastrium and the De Claris 
Mulieribiis, which stimulated Chaucer to the production of his 
two collections of independent narratives already mentioned, the 
Monk's Tale and the Legend of Good Women. 

The monk declares that he has in his cell a book of a hundred 
"tragedies," which he implies were arranged in chronological 
order. Of these, however, he only gives seventeen, and accord- 
ing to no strict plan. He begins with Lucifer^ Adam, Samson, 
Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar ; but into the middle 
of the group, before Nero, he inserts brief accounts of Pedro of 
Spain, Pierre of Cyprus, Barnabo, and Ugolino, which told of 
very modern occurrences. Apparently these eleven stanzas (for 
all four tragedies occupy no more) formed a late insertion into 
a work that Chaucer had earlier begun but lacked incentive 
to continue. He humorously represents the Tale of the 
Monk as unfinished because the Knight, finding the uniform 
narration dull, interrupts the reciter in the interest of the 
fatigued company. 

It should be observed that once again, when Chaucer's 
artistic sense caused him to abandon a work which did not 
commend itself to him after he had proceeded with it a short 
way, his disciple Lydgate, less sensitive and more plodding, 



TALES 34i 



brought the whole to completion. Lydgate's Falls of Princes was 
also fashioned after Boccaccio's De Casibus ; but he had it before 
him in a French version by one Laurent de Premierfait, an 
ecclesiastic of Troyes. The Falls of Princes is the best of 
Lydgate's longer works, and deservedly met with favour. The 
Mirror for Magistrates, by Sackville, Baldwin, and others, 
was a later series of "piteous tragedies," probably suggested 
by it. 

In the De Claris Mulieribus Boccaccio gives succinct accounts 
in Latin prose of 105 illustrious women. Chaucer's plan in the 
Legend of Good Women agrees with that of the Italian writer in 
the general scheme of narrating the lives of many heroines, chiefly 
of antiquity, without connecting-links, but united by an intro- 
ductory prologue. In both cases the work, undertaken, each 
author states, in a time of leisure, is dedicated unobtrusively to a 
queen, whom each had in mind to exalt in his last legend. 
Boccaccio actually did this ; but Chaucer, not finishing his under- 
taking, failed to tell of Alcestis, whom he desired particularly to 
praise. 

Neither in this work nor in the Monk's Tale does Chaucer 
derive all his material from Boccaccio's compilation ; but he 
shows esteem for his "auctour Lollius" by imitating his plan. 
From another Latin production by Boccaccio, it may be added, 
the De Genealogia Deoru??i Gentilium et Heroum, a dictionary of 
mythology, Chaucer also gleaned information introduced in 
various places. 

The number of learned compilations of this general kind 
from which English writers could and did draw is very large, 
so large that it is difficult to determine the exact source in any 
particular instance. Before the time of the Crusades the illustra- 
tive tales in sermons were usually of Christian origin, but later 
material was utilised of every provenience. When preaching to 
the laity became more and more common, especially after the 
establishment of the orders of friars, and sermons had to be made 
attractive to the uncultivated, the number of story-books intended 



342 TALES 



to help in their preparation became very great. Among the 
most significant are the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (f c. 1240), 
celebrated as a preacher of the Crusade against the Albigenses, 
and the Liber de Septem Donis of Etienne de Bourbon (f c 1261). 
The latter has a peculiar value from the fact that the author 
collected popular material at first hand, like Walter Map and 
Gervase of Tilbury, and bears witness to many popular super- 
stitions and customs now dismissed. Of Latin sermon-books by 
Englishmen the most notable is the Summa Predicantium of John 
Bromyard of Hereford (f 14 18), which contains a very large 
number (about a thousand) of exempla in topical arrangement, 
drawn from almost every sort of book accessible to a man with a 
well-stored library at his command. Historical rather than 
fabulous anecdotes were favoured by Robert Holcot (f 1349), like 
Bromyard of the Dominican order, and professor of theology at 
Oxford. From his book of commentaries, Super Libros Sapientiae, 
as we have seen, Chaucer appears to have derived some material 
for the tales of the Nun's Priest and Pardoner. 

The use of such " sermones parati " appears to have been very 
detrimental to the style of mediaeval preachers, whose sermons 
were often little more than a series of anecdotes. Dante com- 
plains of those who " go forth with jests and buffooneries to preach, 
and swell with pride if they can but raise a laugh." Gautier de 
Chateau-Thierry, a preacher of the thirteenth century, says of 
the sending of the disciples by John the Baptist to Christ : 
"audiebat verba oris eius, non opera regum, vel Renardi, vel 
fabulas." Wycliffe insists that when Christ bade His disciples go 
into all the world to preach, their message was to be the Gospel 
and not the story of Troy. 

The example-books, indeed, exerted a pervasive influence on 
all sorts of mediaeval writers. Even Chaucer could not resist the 
temptation to cite " ensamples " repeatedly in support of his views. 
It was well enough for him to indulge the Pardoner in this 
practice, for he thus the better illustrated the methods of the 
common sermoniser, who justified his habit of narrating "en- 



TALES 343 



samples many oon, of olde stories longe tyme agoon," by the 
reason, no doubt true, that 

Lewed people loven tales olde, 

Swich thinges can they wel reporte and holde. 

But elsewhere he had no such good excuse. In the Franklin's 
Tale, for example, he disturbs the progress of the story to cite 
examples, to the extent of about a hundred lines, of ladies who 
preferred death to pollution. Even the cock Chauntecleer on his 
roost instructs fair Pertelote concerning the significance of dreams 
with " ensamples olde " to the length of forty lines, or more. So 
prevalent, in fact, is the tendency to make every one, human or 
superhuman, man or beast, speak in parables, that it grows at last 
exasperating, and, like Troilus to stop Pandar's talk, one is some- 
times prone to exclaim, even in Chaucer's presence, " Lat be 
thyne olde ensamples, I thee preye." 

The Pardoner's harangue was a " moral tale," with many a 
digression and illustration, pointing out the sin and sorrowful 
consequence of "gluttony, luxury, and hazardry," blasphemy and 
avarice. Under these or similar headings the stories in many of 
the Latin example-books were grouped. There were also works 
in the English vernacular in which the same method was em- 
ployed. One of the most noteworthy of these is a poem that we 
shall presently examine more minutely, the Handlyng Synne, of 
Robert of Brunne (1303), where a large number of stories of all 
sorts are introduced into a theological discourse on such stern 
topics as the Seven Deadly Sins, to enforce and spice the teaching. 
Gower's Confessio Amantis, one of the largest bodies of narrative 
verse in the English language, is in plan similar — a discourse on 
the Seven Deadly Sins and their antidotes. Here, however, the 
application is different : the sins are against the God of Love. 
Gower was familiar not only with Chaucer's Legend, but also 
with the Roman de la Rose, the second part of which contains a 
vast deal of learned lore. 

In the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landri, which that 



344 TALES 



worthy Frenchman prepared about 137 1 for the instruction of his 
three motherless daughters, are inserted many examples, which the 
author had collected for him by two priests and two clerks. They 
are of all sorts, some it would seem hardly fit for the ears of 
young women, though speech was then more open and free than 
now. An English translation of this work, prepared in the reign of 
Henry VI. for some person of rank, is extant in an elegant manu- 
script. Caxton published another version in 1484. The knightly 
author states that he also wrote a similar work for the guidance of 
his two sons ; but no trace of this is to be found, even in French. 
No doubt it too was an example-book as well as a book of 
courtesy. 

The Oriental story-book that the Middle Ages found most 
amusing was that of the Seven Sages of Rome, which merits our 
more particular attention because one of the earliest Middle 
English poems is based on it — a poem some 4000 lines long, of 
the thirteenth century. There exist a host of versions of this 
collection of tales, and they differ much from one another. 
In general, however, the framework is the same ; and in this 
remains the clearest trace of its Indian origin and its final ethical 
purpose. It was manifestly planned to illustrate certain qualities 
of men, and particularly women, which the Brahmins thought 
abiding, and which therefore they believed wise youth should be 
on their guard against. Easterners were very cynical with respect 
to women's virtue. They thought them unstable and guileful, and 
with plain delight related tales to indicate feminine perversity. 
On the other hand, they knew that rulers have always been a prey 
to evil counsel, that shrewd men surround every prince, and seek 
to influence him to their advantage. The Book of the Seven Sages 
presents in direct contrast an equal number of each of these 
two varieties, tales of designing women and evil counsellors, all to 
the glorification of wise teaching. 

The Emperor Diocletian of Rome is said to have had a young son, Valen- 
tine, whom, when the empress dies, he commits to the care of Seven Wise 
Masters, that he may be well instructed in all arts and sciences. They pursue 



vi TALES 345 

their task zealously for seven years, and as a result the youth becomes excep- 
tionally wise. Diocletian, meanwhile, has been married again to a young 
woman of great beauty, who, eager to see the heir to the throne, and jealous 
of his position, induces the emperor to summon him home. Learning by 
astrology that the prince will lose his life if he speaks for seven days after 
meeting his father, artful plans have to be contrived to preserve him against 
Diocletian's wrath during this time. The situation is complicated by the step- 
mother's interference. Becoming enamoured of Valentine, she acts towards 
him as Potiphai's wife to Joseph, and when her advances are rejected, accuses 
the prince of insul.ting her and of plotting the emperor's death. Diocletian 
in anger pronounces on his son a judgment of death, but is dissuaded from 
having it immediately executed by the arrival of one of the Sages, who 
tells him a warning example of woman's cunning. What is accomplished by 
the wise man in the day is undone by the wife in the evening by a story she 
tells to the discredit of counsellors. Thus time and again for seven days the 
emperor's mind -is altered under conflicting influence. The empress relates 
seven tales, each of the wise men one, until finally, on the seventh day, when 
the sentence is about to be executed, the wife's arts having apparently pre- 
vailed, the boy himself is able to speak, tells a pertinent tale, and denounces 
the perfidy of the empress, who, being unable to deny his accusations, suffers 
the hard fate decreed at her instigation for the prince. 

The setting of the Seven Sages is fairly stable wherever the 
book appears, in East or West. But in certain respects the 
Oriental versions differ from nearly all the Western. The most 
notable is the fact that the youth has only one preceptor, the 
famous philosopher Sindibad, who is the central figure through- 
out. Moreover, each Sage tells two tales in the Oriental versions, 
and only one in the Western. When we leave the framework 
and come to examine the stories themselves, we observe at once 
great diversity. The two groups have only four tales in common. 
And even in those of a single group frequent substitution has 
sometimes caused great unlikeness in the final form. 

Of the Western versions three are especially significant. The 
oldest preserved, but not the most primitive, is the so-called 
DolopathoS) extant in Latin prose of about the year 1200, and in a 
long French poem (12,000 lines) by one Herbert, based on it. 
Here we have only one instructor, and the queen's stories are 
suppressed. Material from oral tradition (such, for example, as a 



346 TALES 



swan-maiden story) was included by preference. The Sept Sages 
de Rome, which probably arose about 1150 or earlier, attained 
greater popularity. A hundred or more manuscripts of the type 
exist. This comprises fifteen tales, the empress telling seven, the 
Sages seven, and the prince the last. Though with twice as many 
stories as the Dolopathos, it has only 5060 lines. A Latin re- 
daction, the Historia Septem Sapientum Romae, had later {c. 1330 ?) 
a tremendous vogue, not only in France but also in many countries 
of Europe, particularly Germany. On it ultimately were based 
several late English versions, and a long poem by the sixteenth- 
century Scottish writer Rolland, which had considerable popularity 
in its day. The exact source of the early English poem is as yet 
undetermined. 

It would be engaging to recount the different tales, all of them 
shrewd and pointed, but space does not permit. The streams 
of narrative that flowed into the great " Ocean of the Rivers of 
Story " (as one Eastern collection is called) are similar enough in 
colour to be easily detected, but they took up in their course 
through Western lands elements of diverse appearance, and the 
result is complex. In the early English version, the story of 
Merlin's unstable tower, and the like, appear alongside of that 
of the speaking magpie (like Chaucer's crow), and that of the 
treasure-tower of Octavian (previously of Rhampsinitus), whose 
son cut off his father's head to conceal his own guilt. Another 
story in the collection, concerning the unhappy husband, who 
thought to teach his profligate wife a lesson by locking her out, 
but was not wise enough to anticipate her wiles, and in the end 
got trapped himself and put to death for his pains, was told, it 
will be remembered, by Boccaccio, and afterwards in softened 
form by Moliere. 

The Decamercm is likewise a composite of unlike elements. 
In it the setting is more real and artistic, the induction of each 
tale more skilfully made. During the terrible plague of 1348, 
seven fair and gentle ladies are represented by the author as 
withdrawing from Florence to a beautiful country-seat two miles 



TALES 347 



distant. With them they take three friends of the 'stronger 
sex as companions and protectors. In a lovely garden the ten 
associate together in gaiety, endeavouring to banish from their 
minds disagreeable thoughts of surrounding sorrow by the telling 
of tales. Each one of the party has a story to tell on each of 
the ten days that the entertainment lasts. 

There is no evidence that Chaucer was acquainted with 
Boccaccio's great book, strange though the fact may be. He 
had plenty of suggestion in other collections of stories if he had 
needed any to guide him in his work ; but his plan far surpasses 
all others previously conceived, and in its execution his art is 
often beyond praise. For all the Canterbury Tales in verse, except 
one or two, pre-existent parallels have here been shown. The 
Second Nun's Tale is a saint's life of an ordinary kind, as will 
shortly appear. The Canon's Yeoman's may be based on a real 
experience. The greatness of Chaucer's works is not due to the 
poet's power of invention, but to his human sympathy and genial 
humour, which transfigure his characters, and to the wonderful 
melody of his verse. 

In England, as late as in Chaucer's time, such popular tales as 
were written in the vernacular were practically all in rhyme. But 
in Italian the prose tale had already attained classic dignity, and 
the gradual disappearance of the metrical fabliaux it would not 
have taken much perspicacity to foresee. That Boccaccio was 
not the first to collect and redact entertaining tales in prose is 
well known. The variegated collection known as the Cento 
Novelli Antiche was given shape before his time. Nor was he by 
any means the last. There soon arose in Italy a large company 
of novellieri, realistic story-tellers of wonderful productivity. 
Mention need here be made of the names of only a few whose 
novels were current in England : Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Poggio, 
Bandello, Cinthio, and Straparola — all of whom, and more, con- 
tributed to a work which was one of the most influential in 
determining the themes of Elizabethan dramatists, namely, 
Painter's Palace of Pleasure. By the side of North's Plutarch and 



348 TALES chap, vi 

Holinshed's Chronicles, this work takes a conspicuous place as 
one of the chief sources of Shakspere's material. In Italian 
novels he, like so many of his fellows, found plots ready-made, 
and without hesitation seized the available treasure. The French, 
among whom the fabliaux had arisen, having meanwhile adopted 
the new manner and material, maintained their old position as 
general distributors to Europe. It was through such works as 
the Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, that much of the 
Italian production was communicated to the English. The 
Middle Ages thus provided for future generations a supply of 
fiction that has been turned to rich literary account. 

In this chapter hints have been given how fabliaux pre- 
pared for farces, pious tales anticipated mysteries, and novels 
provided the bases of plays. It will presently be seen how 
debates persisted, and the custom of allegory yielded moralities. 
Legends of the Robert of Sicily type were early acted in public, 
and other romantic themes of many sorts were recast in dramatic 
form. The origins of the drama we shall not attempt to trace 
here ; but it is in place to remark that play-acting did not begin 
abruptly, that the themes of dramas were not all churchly even in 
very early times, and that the methods of the stage were a popular 
growth. 



CHAPTER VII 



HISTORICAL WORKS 



Chronicles 



In the Middle Ages, far more than now, history and romance 
went hand in hand. The most scientific history contained 
fabulous elements and the most extravagant romance claimed 
authority. A prevailing belief in miracles and special dispensa- 
tions of Providence led to the insertion in veracious documents 
of popular tradition not really susceptible of disproof, and made 
the acceptance of fanciful stories natural as an act of faith. The 
rhymed chronicles of mediaeval England have little significance 
as compilations of fact. If otherwise unsupported, the historian 
views their statements with just suspicion. But those who would 
advise themselves of the influences that moulded the national 
sentiment of the English people, as well as students of the 
English language, will examine them with reward. For a proper 
appreciation of the literary and historical value of each, they must 
be viewed in connection with one another, for no one is inde- 
pendent of those that went before. All alike, the English metrical 
chroniclers had modest ambition — to convey to the ignorant laity 
interesting information obtained from easily accessible French 
or Latin sources, without learned pretension or refinement of 
rhetoric. Nevertheless, in literary merit their works more than 
hold their own with their Norman prototypes, and (comprising, 
when taken together, a vast number of lines) they form important 
records of the native speech. 

349 



35o HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

It was about one hundred and forty years after the Conquest, 
some fifty years after the last entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
had been made, that it occurred to a parish priest of Lower Arley, 
in northern Worcestershire, to put into English the early history of 
the land in which he lived. His work is the most valuable single 
production in English speech between the Conquest and Chaucer, 
although it was at the same time one of the least potent in its 
influence. 

All that we know of the author we learn from the striking 
words with which the history begins : 

There was a priest in the land who was named Layamon. He was the 
son of Leovenath. May the Lord be gracious to him ! He dwelt at Ernley, 
a noble church upon the Severn's bank — good it seemed to him there — near 
Redstone, where he read books. It came to him in mind, in his chief 
thought, that he would tell the noble deeds of England, what the men were 
named, and whence they came, who first possessed the English land after the 
flood that came from the Lord, that destroyed here all that it found alive 
except Noah and Shem, Japhet and Ham, and their four wives, who were 
with them in the ark. Layamon journeyed wide over the land and procured 
the noble books which he took as pattern. He took the English book that 
St. Bede made ; another he took in Latin that St. Albin made ; and the fair 
Austin who brought baptism in hither ; the third book he took and laid 
there in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who 
well could write, and he gave it to the noble Eleanor, who was the high 
King Henry's queen. Layamon laid before him these books and turned the 
leaves ; lovingly he beheld them. May the Lord be merciful to him ! Pen 
he took with fingers, and wrote on book -skin, and the true words set 
together, and the three books pressed into one. Now prayeth Layamon for 
the Almighty God each good man that shall read this book and learn this 
counsel that he say together these soothfast words for his father's soul who 
brought him forth, and for his mother's soul who bore him to be man, and 
for his own soul that it be the better. Amen ! 

This charming preface exhibits the character of the author in 
unmistakable wise. A simple-hearted man, we observe, tender 
and devout, a sincere book-lover, an honest scholar, a faithful 
son. Evidently Layamon worked not for promotion or favour, 
not at the instigation of a patron in power, but for the love of 



vil HISTORICAL WORKS 351 

learning, for his people's good. His office was to read the service 
in a little country church, and in this retirement he found hours 
of leisure, which he improved for study. With enthusiasm he 
began to paint a picture of his country's past, and by the power 
of a rich poetic imagination he made it a work of living force. 
The basis of the Brut (for so Layamon called his work, after 
Brutus, the fabulous progenitor of the British) is clearly Wace's 
metrical version of Geoffrey of Monmouth. From the other books 
which he had before him he apparently took little if anything. 
He was unaware that the English Bede was connected with King 
Alfred, and by mistake (for which reasons could be offered) 
ascribed the Latin original to St. Albin and St. Augustine. 
Unless it be the tale of Pope Gregory and the English slaves in 
Rome, nothing seems to have been drawn from Bede in any 
form. We have no evidence that he was a man of much learn- 
ing. He no doubt gathered together all the books he could 
acquire, and he gleaned also a good deal from oral tradition, but 
he finally found it best to follow closely in the footsteps of Wace. 
Both Wace and Layamon were reading clerks, both subjects 
of the kings of England, contemporaries. But great is the 
difference between them in manner and spirit, as well as in the 
circumstances and condition of their lives. Wace was a Norman, 
who had associated with courtiers and witnessed royal pageants ; 
Layamon, so far as we can tell, was an Englishman, in no way 
conspicuous by his parentage or position, who lived a narrow life, 
surrounded by plain people, in a remote country town. Wace 
was a writer by profession, who never lost sight of his patron, 
and eagerly expected a reward. Layamon, in undertaking his 
Brut, was actuated chiefly, perhaps wholly, by patriotic impulses, 
without thought of preferment ; and we have no evidence that 
he wrote anything else. Wace's narrative is characterised by 
elegance, refinement, and courtly sentiment ; Layamon's by 
earnestness, strength, and simple zeal. Wace is cool and con- 
ventional ; Layamon emotional and unrestrained. If Wace was 
influenced by his Norman environment in his presentation of 



352 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

British history, Layamon's English sentiments likewise suggested 
the style of his work. Wace's models were the metrical 
romances of the French ; Layamon's the epic songs of Old 
England, the alliterative records of national events. 

Perhaps nowhere does the difference between the attitude 
of Wace and that of Layamon come out more clearly than in 
their treatment of Arthur, whose history occupies about one- 
third of the Brut. To Wace he is the most brilliant of knights, 
the mirror of chivalry, a romantic hero rather than an actual 
king. Layamon, on the comtrary, envisaged him in the light of 
his English ideals. He was of great physical strength, determined, 
and bold, a powerful, self-reliant monarch, who would brook no 
interference with his will, and established peace by might. Wace 
narrates in detail the circumstances of Arthur's fight with the 
giant Ritho, who demanded the King's beard; but Layamon 
hurries past such fantastic episodes in order to dwell on the 
tribute and hostages won from subject kings. An interesting 
English touch appears in his account of the fight with the giant 
of Mont St. Michel. Geoffrey and Wace represent Arthur as 
ready to take the monster at a disadvantage before he can 
defend himself; but to Layamon fair play in any combat was 
a right. After stating that the giant was asleep when the King 
arrived, so that he might readily have been slain without danger, 
he remarks that Arthur woke him first and put him on his 
guard, lest he should afterwards be reproached for a dishonour- 
able deed. 

Following the best Germanic traditions of valour, Arthur 
could on occasion be boastful and "gab," as we now should 
think, unbecomingly; but he always justified his assertions and 
maintained his dignity. Around him was gathered a body of 
men who in Layamon appear as the comitatus of a Germanic 
chieftain, rather than as the fellowship of knights-errant who in 
French romance occupied seats at the Round Table. 

It is obvious that the overshadowing of the romantic episodes 
in Arthur's career, and the prominence given to his wars of 



HISTORICAL WORKS 353 



conquest, were due primarily to a desire to exalt him to a 
position of historical dignity, to represent him as a national 
figure of whom Englishmen might boast. Layamon's attitude 
towards Arthur was that of the majority of his countrymen, that 
of the later English chroniclers, as will presently appear. 

Yet Layamon was ready to believe that mystery surrounded 
this marvellous king. He is the first to record how the three 
"weird sisters," or elves, appeared at his birth and predicted 
his fate. He introduces the picture of his departure to the 
other world to be healed of his wounds by Argante (Morgain), 
the fairy queen, and makes both him and Merlin utter the 
" British hope." 

The scene of Arthur's death, reminding one in some features 
of Beowulf's, may be given in the poet's own words, thus modern- 
ised by Sir Frederic Madden : 

Then was there [on the bloody field of Camelford] no more remnant 
in the fight of two hundred thousand men but Arthur the King and two of 
his knights. Wondrously much was Arthur wounded. There came to him 
a youth who was of his kindred : he was son of Cador, Earl of Cornwall ; 
Constantine hight the lad ; he was dear to the king. Him the king beheld 
where he lay on the field and said these words with sorrowful heart : " Con- 
stantine, thou art welcome ; thou wert Cador's son ; I give thee here my 
kingdom. Guard thy Britons ever in thy life ; and hold for them all the 
laws that have stood in my days, and all the good laws of Uter's time. And 
I will fare to Avalon, to the fairest of all maidens, to Argante their queen, an 
elf most beautiful. And she shall make my wounds all sound, make me all 
whole with healing draughts. And afterwards I will come again to my 
kingdom and dwell with the Britons with mickle joy." Even with these 
words there drew near from the sea a little boat tossing on the waves, and 
two women therein wondrously formed ; and they took Arthur anon and 
bare him to the boat and laid him down softly, and departed away. Then 
was accomplished what Merlin whilom said, that mickle grief should attend 
Arthur's forthfaring. The Britons believe yet that he is alive and dwells in 
Avalon with the fairest of all elves, and the Britons still ever look for Arthur 
to return. There is no man born of woman that can of sooth say more of 
Arthur. But whilom was a sage hight Merlin : he proclaimed with words 
(his sayings were sooth) that Arthur should yet come to the help of the 
Britons. 

2 A 



354 HISTORICAL WORKS chat. 

Dwelling as he did on the Welsh marches, Layamon was 
in the midst of living Arthurian tradition, and from Welsh 
legend he drew material with which occasionally to modify or 
expand Wace. The most significant of his additions, his 
elaborate account of the institution of the Round Table, of 
which mention has already been made, he doubtless found in 
a Welsh tale current in his neighbourhood. Seldom, however, 
are Layamon's modifications of Wace important so far as fact 
is concerned. Where his individuality appears is in the altered 
style of his narrative, the infusion of a new spirit. Wace made 
Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britain less rhetorically 
impersonal, more vivid. More than Geoffrey be described 
scenes as an eye-witness, and pictured ancient warriors in 
modern guise. He made them speak oftener in person, and act 
more like men of his own age. Layamon was equally realistic 
in his own way. Anachronisms troubled him no whit more. 
He was determined to make his characters live real in the eyes 
of his fellows, and by graphic touches he further animated and 
actualised his story. His style, fashioned on that of his fathers, 
has all the picturesqueness and glow of the Anglo-Saxon past, with 
condensed metaphor and balanced phrase. Alliteration demanded 
a rich vocabulary, and Layamon's stock was astonishingly full and 
pure. 

We shall get a good idea of the poet's style if we follow 
for a little his account of Arthur's struggles with his foreign foes. 
Witness first the speech put into his mouth when messengers 
from the Danes* beg for peace, and promise, if allowed to return 
home, never more to molest the land : 

Then laughed Arthur, with loud voice : " Thanks be to God that all 
dooms wieldeth that Childric> the strong is tired of my land ! My land he 
hath apportioned to all his chief knights, myself he thought to drive out of 
my country, hold me for base, and have my realm and my kin all put to 
death, my folk all destroyed. But with him it has happened as it is with the 
fox when he is boldest over the weald and hath his full play and fowls enow; 
for wildness he climbeth and rocks he seeketh ; in the wilderness holes to 
him he worketh. For. whosoever shall fare, he hath never any care. He 



HISTORICAL WORKS 355 



weeneth to be of power the boldest of all animals. But when to him come 
men under the hills, with horns, with hounds, with loud cries, the hunters 
there hollow, the hounds there give tongue, they drive the fox over dales and 
downs ; he fleeth to the holm and seeketh his hole ; into the farthest end of 
the hole he goeth ; then is the bold fox of bliss all deprived, and men dig to 
him on every side ; then is most wretched the proudest of all animals ! So 
was it with Childric the strong and the rich ; he thought all my kingdom to 
set in his own land ; but now I have driven him to the bare death, whatso- 
ever I will do, either slay or hang. Now will I give him peace, and let 
him speak with me. I will not slay him nor hang, but his prayer I will 
receive. Hostages I will have of the highest of his men, their horses and 
weapons ere they hence depart ; and so as wretches they shall go to their 
ships, sail oversea to their good land, and there worthily dwell in their realm 
and tell tidings of Arthur the King, how I have freed them for my father's 
soul and for my freedom solaced the wretches." 

It surely required imaginative power to compose this passage, 
of which there is no hint in the original. Evidently in the Brut 
liberties were taken with fact to make fancy free. Layamon 
reconstructed a poetic Arthur without heed to truth, yet with 
no desire to deceive. 

Childric, we are informed, broke his oath and returned to harass the 
southern coast. For the following description of the invaders' conduct the 
poet may have had in mind the horrors of a real depredation, though he 
received suggestions from the French : 

" As soon as they came on land, the folk they slew ; the churls they drove 
off, that tilled the earth ; the knights they hanged, that defended the land ; 
all the good wives they struck with knives ; all the maidens they murdered ; 
all the learned men [clergy] they cast on gleeds ; all the servants they slew 
with clubs ; they filled the castles, laid waste the land, burned the churches — 
grief was among the people ! Sucking children they drowned in the water ; 
the cattle they took and slaughtered, carried it to their inns, boiled and 
roasted it ; all they took that they came nigh. All day they sang of Arthur 
the King, and said that they had won homes that they would hold in their 
power, and there they would dwell winter and summer ; and if Arthur were 
so bold that he would come to fight with Childric the strong and the rich, 
they would make of his back a bridge, and take all the bones of the noble 
king and tie them together with golden ties and lay them in the hall door, 
where each man should go forth to the worship of Childric the strong and 
the rich ! This was all their game, for Arthur the King's shame ; but all 



356 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

it happened otherwise soon thereafter ; their boast and their shame befel to 
themselves to shame ; and so it doth well everywhere to men who so act." 

Arthur is far away in the north when he hears this dire news. His 
indignation is fierce that his mercy has entailed such harm. A summons 
goes at once to his followers to make haste for revenge. Together they 
speed to Bath. The king arms for battle with elaborate care until he 
stands resplendent, "the fairest of knights, the noblest of race." His 
men he incites to unsparing slaughter of the "heathen hounds" who so 
treacherously have employed their "wicked crafts." Thus Arthur speaks: 
" And for they all are forsworn, so shall they be forlorn (destroyed). They 
shall be put to death, with the Lord's aid. March we now forward, fast 
together, even all as softly as if we thought no evil, and when we come 
to them I myself will commence, foremost of all I will begin the fight. Now 
we shall ride and glide over the land. Let no man on pain of his life 
make noise, but fare quickly. The Lord aid us ! " Then Arthur the rich 
man began to ride ; he proceeded over the weald and Bath would seek. 

A severe conflict follows, in which "the stiff-minded king" does marvels. 
All the earth dins under his horse's hoofs. The first earl he meets he smites 
through the breast and cleaves his heart. " And the king called anon : 
' The foremost is dead ! Now help us the Lord, and the heavenly queen, 
who the Lord bore ! ' Then called Arthur, noblest of kings : ' Now to them, 
now to them ! The beginning is well done.' " 

The British slay two thousand of the wicked without the loss ' of one of 
their own men. With his own spear Arthur works dire destruction. "The 
king was all enraged as is the wild boar when in the beech wood he meeteth 
many swine." The Avon is bridged by the mail-clad slain. Childric flees 
to Bath hill and defends himself in desperation. 

" Then yet called Arthur, noblest of kings : ' Yesterday was Baldolf of 
all knights boldest, but now he standeth on the hill and beholdeth the Avon, 
how the steel fishes lie in the stream ! Armed with sword, their life is 
destroyed ; their scales float like gold-dyed shields ; there float their fins like 
spears. Strange things are come to this land — such beasts on the hill, such 
fishes in the stream.' " 

After further taunts he pushes on, always in the front, inciting his men, 
until at last complete victory is the British reward, and Arthur thus gleefully 
addresses the slain leader of the enemy : " Thou didst climb this hill 
wondrously high as if thou wouldst to heaven ; but now thou shalt to hell. 
There thou mayest learn much of thy kin. And greet thou there Hengest that 
was fairest of knights, Ebissa and Ossa, Octa and more of thy kin, and bid 
them dwell there winter and summer, and we shall live [here] in [this] land 
with bliss. Pray for your souls that happiness never come to them, and here 
shall your bones lie, beside Bath." 



HISTORICAL WORKS 357 



How strange the situation — Layamon the Englishman vehe- 
mently enthusiastic over the defeat of his English ancestors by 
their British foes ! Reasons for the apparent inconsistency are not 
far to seek. In the first place, the Anglo-Saxons were invaders of 
England, and the poet's patriotism was for his country, not for his 
race. Distinctions of blood were early ignored by all Englishmen 
solicitous for the common weal. Then again, in Geoffrey and 
Wace the Anglo-Saxons were always represented as heathen, and 
the struggle against them was to vindicate the cause of Christ. 
Like Charlemagne and the Crusaders, Arthur waged a holy war. 
Elsewhere Saxons and Saracens are synonymous terms. Finally, 
it had come about, largely through the influence of the Normans, 
who were eager to boast of their new possessions in the face 
of the French, that Arthur was regarded not only as a national 
champion, but as a world -conqueror of amazing fame, and by 
the exaltation of his fancied achievements the country he had 
ruled assumed dignity abroad and justified English pride. 

We are not aware of the exact date at which Layamon wrote. 
He makes no allusion to contemporary events. His reference, 
however, to Eleanor in the preface implies that she was then 
dead, so that the poem appears to have been composed after 
1 204. This coincides with the date of the separation of Normandy 
from England, and the foundation of an insular nationality. 
Under the influence of such a momentous event, Layamon may 
have decided to recount the glories of his island home. 

Concerning the history of the work, the following facts are 
significant : (1) that the original manuscript is lost; (2) that only 
one copy of it remains in a form close to that in which we may 
presume it to have left the author's hands ; (3) that, nevertheless, 
it was popular enough to be rewritten half a century later ; but (4) 
that it then assumed a shape which, were the older copy lost, 
would give us a wrong impression of the poet's art. 

The great importance of the Brut to the grammarian there is 
no need to emphasise. It is perhaps the chief monument of early 
Middle English speech, significant not only because of its length 



358 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

(over 32,000 lines) but also because of its extraordinary freedom 
in vocabulary from foreign intermixture. To the student of the 
structure of poetry it is interesting because it betrays much 
freedom in the manner of alliterative verse : it contains a goodly 
number of rhymes, and assonance appears. 



From the opening we pass to the closing years of the thirteenth 
century before we find other noteworthy English chronicles. Then, 
or shortly after, several were called forth by popular demand, 
written to satisfy the desires or needs of the middle classes, who 
had all along been growing steadily in power and were evincing 
more and more interest in national affairs. 

These chronicles differ from the Brut notably in that they are 
brought up to date. They begin likewise at the beginning, and 
embody the fables of the British and Saxons, but they continue 
the narrative to their own times and record recent events. In 
plan and scope they thus resemble the more learned Latin 
histories, from which they derive much of their material, while 
in method they perpetuate the style of the chronicles in verse. 
The authors make no claim to originality ; they declare themselves 
to be first and foremost popularisers, undertaking tasks for the 
common profit, not for their own glory. Had they desired fame, 
they would have tried writing in Latin. 

The earliest of these chroniclers is usually called Robert of 
Gloucester. This name we may retain, for that one of the two 
conclusions in which the name appears is probably an integral 
part of the work ; and the author not only wrote in the dialect of 
Gloucester, but was familiar with the locality. When he gives 
his name, he at the same time refers to an event which gives 
us reason to believe that he himself dwelt in the neighbourhood 
of Evesham in the year 1265, namely, the great darkness that 
attended the famous battle there, which he says was so great that 
the monks could not then read the service in the churches. 
It extended for thirty miles around, and was like that at the 



vii HISTORICAL WORKS 359 

Crucifixion ; but only a few drops of rain fell. " This saw Robert 
that first made this book, and was well sore afraid." We are 
perhaps justified in the surmise that Robert was one of those who 
saw not only the darkness but the consternation of the monks, 
and that he was already then a member of the fraternity. Certainly 
the whole tone of his work is that of a stern ascetic, of a vehement, 
almost fanatical, upholder of the Church. He was eager to 
recognise God's hand in history ; denounced roundly those who 
offended against His holy law ; praised those who honoured Him 
by good works ; was relentless in his attitude towards heathen ; 
and showed no charity for the Jews. He was familiar with many 
ecclesiastical legends, and appears to have written some himself. 

Uncertainty reigns not only with respect to Robert's person- 
ality and the original form of his book, but also with respect to 
his sources. Yet this problem has been solved in essentials. 
In the part corresponding to Layamon, the chronicler in general 
follows Geoffrey's Latin history, without apparently having recourse 
to Wace. For his geographical introduction and other matters 
he drew from Henry of Huntingdon, though he also consulted 
William of Malmesbury. In the second section, from about 
the year 800 to the Conquest, Henry and William were his 
chief sources ; but he took material also from the De Genealogia 
Regum Anglorum and the Vita Sancti Edwardi of Ailred de 
Rievaulx, Ailred's influence being most evident in the history of 
Cnut and Edward the Confessor. In the legend of Queen Emma 
the author's account resembles most that of the Annals of Win- 
chester. For the history of Count Robert of Gloucester a source 
in the Anglo-Norman continuation of the Brut has been pointed 
out. For the concluding period, to 1 271, in addition to works 
already mentioned, annals of various kinds (especially those of 
Waverley) were laid under contribution. The influence of popular 
tradition and the lives of saints is also manifest throughout. In 
the latter part of his work, Robert's statements, though not wholly 
unbiassed, have the value of contemporary authority. 

It cannot be said of Robert that he was a man pf much 



360 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

literary power. His work has been decried more than its due, 
but plainly it is not to be compared with Layamon's as a poetic 
achievement. He chose verse as a medium of conveying facts 
because its use in that way was traditional, not because he was a 
poet by nature. Only in rare instances does he show any superior 
qualities of art or judgment. But his love of England and passion 
for her praise make him a sympathetic and significant figure. 
" England is a well good land, I ween, of all lands the best," are 
the first words of the book, and strike a patriotic keynote. Like 
Layamon, he too lauds Arthur to the skies. The king's death, 
after his " last chivalrye " in opposing the traitor Modred, is to 
him a personal grief. Yet to him the " British hope " was a 
"British lie." Had not Arthur's bones been newly discovered at 
Glastonbury? Caliburn (Excalibur), he declares, was made in 
Ramsey or some such place, not in Avalon. His Arthurian 
material is more tinged by romance than Layamon's. " Chivalry " 
is a word familiar to him ; and its highest embodiment, Gawain, 
he has come to regard as the "flour of corteysye." True, he had 
his doubts about the Conqueror, and denounces the deeds of 
some of his royal successors, but he felt the Normans to be in 
reality his fellow countrymen, and he desired the closest union of 
all Englishmen to maintain the honour of the land. 

Shortly after Robert of Gloucester had made accessible to 
the people of his district the supposed facts of national history, 
a Northern contemporary undertook to do the same for those 
about him — a useful effort, since, because of the diversity of 
dialects in England at the time, works in the vernacular could 
attain to only a limited local popularity. This chronicle, as yet 
not published, is preserved in a single manuscript, which by some 
chance long ago strayed to Gottingen. It has, however, been 
carefully studied, and we have reliable information regarding its 
contents, authorship, and character. 

A prologue of 225 lines is occupied with the fable of the 
settlement of England by Albion and her sisters, which is drawn 
from a French source. Then, for some 27,000 lines, the historian 



vii HISTORICAL WORKS 361 

follows the account of Geoffrey's Brut, and afterwards narrates, 
with the help of authorities not definitely determined, the subse- 
quent history of England to the coronation of Edward III. The 
whole extends to the great length of almost 40,000 lines. There 
is good evidence that the author stopped writing in the year 
1327. His name, it would seem, was Thomas Belt of Castelford, 
a village two miles from Pontefract in the south of York. 

If he has been correctly identified, he was an old man of at 
least eighty when he ended his chronicle. Leland knew him 
as the author of a history of Pontefract and of the Cistercian 
order to which he belonged, both in Latin. In his work he pays 
special heed to happenings of interest to Yorkshiremen, and 
dwells at length on all those matters of Scottish history which 
were related to England. He is, of course, an English partisan 
in his attitude, but he does not equal Robert of Gloucester in 
enthusiasm. He differs also from Robert in exhibiting favour 
for the English kings, and in that he appears to have been fonder 
of the romances of adventure than of the legends of the Church. 

Thomas's chronicle, unlike those of Layamon and Robert of 
.Gloucester, was written in the short rhymed couplet of the French. 
In an anonymous short chronicle, likewise in couplets, some 
minstrel covered the ground from Brutus to the death of Piers 
Gaveston (13 12) in a little over a thousand lines. Such a produc- 
tion has only a curious interest, as illustrating what sad distortion 
history can undergo in reckless hands. Yet its very faults may 
have gained it success with a common audience, who perhaps 
approved the writer in giving more space to the wrestling-match 
of Corineus and the giant Geomagog at the first landing of 
Brutus in Britain than to the whole of Arthur's life. At all 
events, some one thought it worth while to continue it to the 
beginning of Edward III.'s reign. 

It was a little later, in 1338 (about the time of Chaucer's 
birth), that the next important rhymed chronicle appeared. Then 
a devout old man, residing in a priory of the Gilbertine order at 
Sixhill in Lincolnshire, wrote The Story of England in 16,730 



362 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

lines of fluent verse. Some thirty-five years previously he had 
composed, also in verse, an important didactic treatise, replete 
with anecdotes, called Ha?idlyng Synne, of which we shall later 
treat. This author, one of the leading English writers of the early 
fourteenth century, was called Robert Mannyng, or Robert of 
Brunne, from the name of his birthplace, the present Bourne, in 
Lincolnshire. This was but six miles from Sempringham, the 
mother-house of the Gilbertine order, which house the poet entered 
in 1288. His chronicle has practically no independent historical 
value. The author states frankly that in the early part of his 
narrative he followed Wace, and that when Wace failed him he 
took Langtoft as an authority, and merely reproduced in 
English what he found in French. He would from the first 
have followed Langtoft (a fellow- Yorkshireman, for whom he 
professes great admiration) had he not disapproved of the way 
the French writer " overhopped " events to him significant. His 
translation is faithful, but not slavish. Not only does he make 
slight additions here and there to provide a better connection, 
he also interpolates at will material from other written sources 
such as Bede, Ailred de Rievaulx, Henry of Huntingdon, and 
Nicholas Trivet, as well as from romances on Havelok and 
Richard Coeur de Lion, and perhaps some popular songs. He 
seems also to have used a Life of St. Edmund. Possibly some of 
his additions are based on oral traditions or his own experiences. 
What interests us most in Robert of Brunne is his avowed 
object in writing. Referring to Wace and Langtoft, he says : 

As they have written and said 

Have I all in my English laid, 

In simple speech as I couth, 

That is lightest in man's mouth. 

I made nought for no disours, 

Nor for no seggers (reciters), nor harpers, 

But for the love of simple men 

That strange English cannot ken ; . . . 

I made it not for to be praised, 

But that the lewd (ignorant) men were aise'd, 



HISTORICAL WORKS 363 



His modest personality it is pleasant to remember. Evidently 
of genial nature, sympathetic and unaffected, he won the people's 
confidence. His chief concern, as he tells us, being for "the 
commonalty," "that blithely would listen" to him, he adapted his 
" story " to their needs. He was above all anxious that they 
should get "solace" from it "when they sat in fellowship." His 
poem was to be a means of entertainment when read aloud at 
common gatherings, about the hearth, in the ale-house, or at the 
fair. Many a time no doubt he had associated with the poor in 
their homes or at their festivals, and listened without prejudice or 
scorn to their coarse jests and ignorant talk. Thus, understanding 
their temper as well as their needs, he produced a book from 
which they must have got satisfaction as well as advantage. 
The value of his work to his contemporaries establishes its 
importance to-day. 

Other metrical chronicles were written in the vernacular in 
the fifteenth century. The Original Chronicle of Scotland, by 
Andrew of Wyntoun, covers the period from the creation to 1408. 
Wyntoun (f c. 1425) was Canon Regular of the priory of St. 
Andrews and Prior of St. Serf's in Loch Leven. John Hardyng's 
Chronicle traces English history from the earliest period to 1461. 
The author took part in the battle of Agincourt, and was for 
many years constable of the castle of Kyme in Lincolnshire. 
But of these and other historical works, such as the English 
Chronicle by the Augustinian friar John Capgrave (f 1464), we 
shall later treat. 



Political Poems 

It has already been observed that the chroniclers in recording 
the events of recent times frequently made use of contemporary 
poems to which these had given rise. William of Malmesbury, 
for example, often utilised popular English songs, and snatches 
of others may be found quoted in the French history of 
Pers de Langtoft and the translation by Robert of Brunne. 



364 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

Fabyan preserves Scottish songs relating to the siege of Berwick 
(1296) and the battle of Bannockburn (1314). The latter of 
these exemplifies the minstrel character of such productions, 
intended as they were for popular chant : 

Maidens of England, sore may ye mourn 

For your lemmans ye have lost at Bannockburn 

With hevelow. 
Why weened the King of England 
So soon to have won Scotland ? 

With rumbalow. 

In the romance- of Richard Coer de Lion we read of sailors in 
a sea-fight struggling to overtake their enemies : 

They rowed hard, and sung thereto 
With hevelow and rumbeloo. 

A large number of songs that must once have existed have 
disappeared to the last vestige, influential for the moment but 
unrecorded and ephemeral. Those still by chance extant reveal 
the earnestness and integrity of the common people, their simple, 
unpolluted patriotism, their stalwart pride of race. 

Dating from the reign of Henry III. is a spirited Song against 
the King of Almaigne, directed against Henry's brother, Richard, 
Earl of Cornwall. Specially emphasised is the circumstance of 
his sheltering himself in a windmill after the defeat of the royal 
army at the battle of Lewes in 1264. The song was evidently 
written by a partisan of Simon de Montfort, then at the head 
of the national party, and echoes the general exultation at the fall 
of his deceitful foe. "Richard, though thou be ever trichard 
(tricker), trick shalt thou never more " — so runs the mocking 
refrain. Deep-rooted antipathy to the French appears in the 
Song on the Flemish Insurrection, called forth by the defeat of the 
Count of Artois at the battle of Courtrai in 1302, "wherethrough 
many a French wife wrings her hands and sings waylaway." That 
on the Execution of Sir Simon Frascr, composed in 1306, soon 
after the battle of Kirkencliff, evinces the Englishman's con- 



HISTORICAL WORKS 365 



temptuous attitude towards the Scots, who were all traitors in 
his eyes : 

Prot ! Scot, for thy strife ! 

Hang up thy hatchet and thy knife 

While him lasteth the life 
With the long shanks. 

A poem On the King's Breaking his Confirmation of Magna 
Charta, composed towards the end of 1311, when Edward II. 
joined his banished favourite Piers Gaveston in the North, contains 
the following statements of four wise men : 

1. For might is right, the land is .lawless ; for night is light, the land is 
loreless : for fight is flight, the land is nameless. 

2. For one is two, the land is strengthless ; for weal is woe, the land is 
ruthless ; for friend is foe, the land is loveless. 

3. For lust hath leave, the land is thewless ; for thief is reave, the land is 
penniless ; for pride hath sleeve, the land is almsless. 

4. For will is red (counsel), the land is wreakful ; for wit is qued (wicked), 
the land is wrongful ; for good is dead, the land is sinful. 

The poet makes a plea for love and charity, characteristics of the true 
Christian life. 

Most interesting of the English political poems of the fourteenth 
century are those of Lawrence Minot, an author of whom nothing 
definite is known, but who appears to have lived on the border of 
the East Midland and the North, and who wrote under the 
immediate impression of events between 1333 and 1352. His 
favourite metre is the alliterative long line, rhyming in couplets, 
but he also uses short lines combined in couplets or stanzas. 
To exemplify Minot's style, may be quoted the opening and 
closing strophes of his poem regarding the vengeance taken for 
Bannockburn : 

Scots out of Berwick and of Aberdeen, 

At the Bannockburn were ye too keen ; 

There slew ye many sakless (innocent), as it was seen, 

And now has King Edward wroken (avenged) it, I ween, 
It is wroken, I ween, well worth the while : 
(Be)ware yet with the Scots, for they are full of guile. 



366 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

But many a man threats and speaks full ill 
That some times were better to be stone still ; 
The Scot in his words has wind for to spill, 
For at the last Edward shall have all his will ; 

He had his will at Berwick, well worth the while ; 

Scots brought him the keys, but get (look out) for their guile. 

We have only eleven poems from Lawrence Minot's hand ; 
but these are contained in a unique manuscript, and it is highly 
probable that he wrote still others of the same kind, and maybe 
some religious pieces. The themes of his extant verse are 
incidents of Edward's wars in the North, or on the Continent, 
such as the battles of Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross, the sack 
of Southampton, the sea-fight at Sluys, the siege of Tournay, the 
victory of Crecy, the taking of Calais and Guines. These war- 
ballads are at once lyric and epic. They are repeatedly addressed 
to listeners ; they have the swing of the song, and familiar rhyme 
tags ; but they also narrate events — in the mood of the partisan, 
to be sure, rather than in that of the scrupulous historian, 
yet well enough to indicate the chief moments of the actions 
celebrated and to arouse the interest of all, especially perhaps 
the young. Throughout the author displays himself as a sturdy, 
self-satisfied Englishman, bitter in his dislike of the Scot, and con- 
temptuous of the French. Since the birth of Christ, he declares, 
no one had fought better than the English at times. They 
were ready to tackle the French at the odds of one to six. He 
makes a straight appeal to the people at large for an immediate, 
positive response, trying to arouse their zest for foreign war. He 
is plainly patriotic ; he shows considerable versatility in the use of 
metrical forms ; his style has vigour and dash. But neverthe- 
less we must acknowledge that he judged aright in branding his 
own wit as " thin." His phraseology is too threadbare, his cry too 
shrill, his sentiments too narrow and superficial, to permit us to 
rank him high among poets, even of the mediaeval sort. Henry 
III. kept a Frenchman, Henri d'Avranches, at his court as a 
" versificator," and paid him a good salary to write about his royal 



vn HISTORICAL WORKS 367 

deeds. Minot might suitably have served as a sort of poet- 
laureate to Edward III., his "comely" king, "a noble prince," 
whom he delighted to laud, and for whom he thus prayed : 

God that shaped both sea and sand, 

Save Edward, King of England, 

Both body, soul, and life, 

And grant him joy without strife : 

For many men to him are wroth 

In France and in Flanders both : 

For he defendeth fast his right, 

And thereto Jesu grant him might, 

And so to do both night and day, 

That it may be to Godde's pay (pleasure). 

Minot's political poems were not, of course, the only ones 
evoked by the stirring times of Edward III. Concerning the 
battle of Halidon Hill there is extant at least one other English 
song of exultation, which is called in the manuscript a " romance." 
And such poems, crude though they may be artistically, are 
valuable as manifestations of contemporary feeling. 



Standing somewhat apart from other political verse appear 
visions and prophecies. In a credulous time, when the door 
of the future was unlocked to so many who wished to gather 
material for warnings, it was natural to have the vision used to 
stir a superstitious monarch to service for the Church, and this 
seems to have been the purpose of him who wrote the five 
visions of Adam Davy, "marshal" of Stratford-atte-Bowe, con- 
cerning Edward II. The dreamer saw him once as a pilgrim to 
Rome, riding an ass and wearing a grey cap ; again, together 
with the Pope, "crowned with great bliss" in token that he 
should be emperor of Christendom ; while on a third occasion 
the poet fancied himself in the chapel of the Virgin when her 
Son obtained leave from her to convey Edward on a crusade. 

Of Davy the poet says : " Wei swithe (very) wide his name 
is known." So had it been before him with a far greater seer, 



368 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

into whose mouth was put much political prophecy. Minot 
begins his poem on the landing of Edward at La Hogue (1346) : 

Men may read in romance aright 
Of a great clerk that Merlin hight ; 
Full many books are of him written 
As these clerks well may witten (know), 
And yet in many privy nooks 
Men may find of Merlin books. 

He then proceeds to give one of Merlin's prophecies, and 
applies it to the war in France. Similar prophecies of Merlin 
were again enumerated in a poem of greater length with different 
application. They all rely for credence on the mage's fame as 
established by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which served more than 
once a national cause. Closely allied with Merlin, as we have 
seen, was the Scottish prophet Thomas of Erceldoun, who was 
fabled to have learned of the future from a fairy queen. Some 
at least of the vaticinations perpetuated in the fifteenth century 
under his name were written before the battle of Halidon Hill 
(1333). And the use of the names of both Merlin and Thomas to 
float anticipatory judgments was kept up for many generations. 

In the Scalacro?iica an English prophet, William Banister, is 
associated with Thomas of Erceldoun as men " whose words w r ere 
spoken in figure like the prophecies of Merlin." And Ritson 
pointed out that "Fordun's interpolator speaks of an English knight 
of this name, who, in the night in which Edward the First died, saw, 
in a vision, that monarch's soul insulted and flagellated by devils." 

That rhyme was used in English prophecies as early as the 
twelfth century is evident from the so-called He?-e Prophecy, which 
arose soon after 1189, when Ralph FitzStephen set up the 
image of a hart over a house at Here (?), which had been given 
to him by Henry II. 

Satires 

Though satirical denunciations appear in almost every sort 
of mediceval English writing — especially, of course, in didactic 



vii HISTORICAL WORKS 369 

works — formal satires are few, and these generally over-serious 
and lumbering. In contrast to the French style, a tone of severe 
earnestness characterises most of the attacks of English poets on 
contemporary evils. They show themselves more ready to deliver 
bludgeon blows than rapier thrusts, rely more on the might of 
threat than on the force of ridicule, use the weapons- of Thor rather 
than those of Odin. Lightness is manifest in The Order of 
Fair-Ease and The Land of Cokaygne, wherein the monks are 
humorously denuded of reverence ; but these works are transla- 
tions or imitations of the French. 

From the time of Edward I. dates a Song of the Husbandman, 
in strophes of alternately eight and four lines, with alliteration and 
rhyme. Its subject is the burden of taxation to support foreign 
wars. All kinds of officials, the author points out, had designs on 
the poor labourer. He was hunted " as hounds do the hare on 
the hill." " Who once wore robes, now wear rags." " Lither 
(grievous) it is to lose where there is little." " Thus breed many 
beggars bold." Bitterly the poet laments the consternation and 
woe abroad in the land. 

In another satirical dirge of the same period, the pride, covet- 
ousness, and contentiousness of the time were exhibited by means 
of the fable of the fox and the wolf, who escape the clutches of the 
lion by means of bribes, while the poor ass suffers for his sim- 
plicity. Oppressors escape just punishment by guile, and the 
innocent suffer the rigours of the law on account of their honesty. 
"Those that are in highest life are most charged with sin." 
Elsewhere, the consistory courts come in for special rebuke, for 
in them the peasants were often badgered, browbeaten, and 
beguiled by clerks and summoners. 

Social unrest is revealed in the attacks On the Retinites of 
Great People, which were often made up, it would seem, of ribalds, 
harlots, horse-cheats, and others thought worthy of hell-fire ; and 
on the prevailing extravagance in dress, which was inveighed 
against with such persistence that Parliament at last strove to 
control luxurious display of raiment by special enactment. 



370 HISTORICAL WORKS CHAP. 

Earlier, in 1275, a statute was issued under the title "Against 
slanderous reports, or tales, to cause discord betwixt king and 
people " — with what effect we know not. But more than a 
statute was needed to stem the tide of direct and indirect denun- 
ciations of the clergy which in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries appeared in English. The dialectic inanities of " false 
clerks " were ridiculed in the Song of Nego. And even the pillars 
of the Church were openly denounced. In a short poem, When 
Holy Church is Under Foot, it is pointed out that simony has 
taken the place of Simon as the rock on which the Church is 
built. The Church, formerly so beloved, is now despised by all. 
Even the Pope is guilty of bribery. But most notable is the 
sorry state of ecclesiastical conditions set forth in a poem On the 
Evil Times of Edward II., preserved in the Auchinleck MS. It 
is composed of 476 long lines, but is incomplete. The author 
undertakes to tell why there is war and revenge and manslaughter 
in the land, why hunger and dearth have subdued the poor, why 
their cattle are dead and corn is dear. 

The clergy do amiss. Truth is little among them. At the court of 
Rome, "where Truth should begin," it is forbidden the place. He dare not 
enter though the pope should call him in, for the pope's clerks have sworn 
his death. For fear of being slain he dare not appear among the cardinals. 
If he meets Simony, he will have his beard shaken. The wisest clerk in the 
world would not be heard at Rome if he came silverless, but any wretch is 
welcome if he brings gold. Some bishops and archbishops are fools and lead 
a sorry life. They dare not reprove their clergy for fear of being betrayed 
themselves. Certainly Holy Church has much degenerated since St. Thomas 
was slain. He was a pillar to hold her upright. Now too many prelates 
serve king as well as Church. Archdeacons take meed of one another, and 
let the parsons and priests have wives. Covetousness stops their mouths. 
When a post is vacant it is sold to the highest bidder. The new incumbent 
does his own sweet will. He gathers money and rides out of town with 
hawks and hounds into a strange country, where he dwells comfortably, 
leaving his church to a thief and a whore. Though the bishop knows of the 
evil behaviour of his reckless subordinates, a little money will stop his mouth. 
If a parson have a priest of clean life, who is a good counsellor to maiden and 
to wife, there will come a "daff" and replace him for a little less, though he 
cannot do a farthing's worth of good, scarcely sing a mass but ill, and thus 



vii HISTORICAL WORKS 371 

shall the parish be ruined for lack of lore. A lewd priest is no better than a 
jay in a cage. Abbots and priors counterfeit knights. Pride is master in 
every house of an Order. Religion is despised. The poor are kept out of the 
monasteries. The monks dress comfortably and give themselves up to ease 
and gluttony. They are fat and red-cheeked. The friars preach more for a 
bushel of wheat than to save a soul. In shrift they discriminate between the 
rich and the poor. They fight for the corpse of a rich man. If a corpse is 
fat, the friar hastens to the dirige; if it is lean, he loafs about his cloister and 
keeps his feet clean at home. A man can bear false witness against his wife 
at a consistory court and get rid of her, then betake himself to his neighbour's 
spouse, and while he has silver he suffers no harm. False physicians help 
men to die, they pretend that a man is sicker than he is, deceive the wife 
to get money for medicines, and themselves eat the good dishes she prepares. 
Earls, barons, and knights are no longer true to their calling. Instead of 
going to the Holy Land, they dispute with one another at home. They are 
lions in the hall and hares in the field. In their dress they can hardly be 
distinguished from gleemen. He who should be as courteous and gentle as a 
lady can chide like a town-scold. Young boys are dubbed knights. Squires 
are no longer gentlemen, but profane and false. Justices, " who will do wrong 
for meed," sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs all deserve the lash of scorn. The 
king is deceived by them. His officials are cheats. The poor are pillaged, 
browbeaten, oppressed. Attorneys, chapmen, assisors are likewise deceitful. 
" God send truth into this land," prays the poet, " for trickery dureth too long." 
" For falseness is so far forth over all the land i-sprung, that well-nigh is no 
truth neither in tongue nor in heart, and therefore it is no wonder though all 
the world smart." The afflictions of the people are a righteous retribution. 
Great lordings are brought low because of their pride. The folly of prelates 
ministers to civil strife. They do not see the truth for mist. They dread 
more to lose their lands than the love of Christ. 

For had the clergy holden together, 

And not flecked about, neither hither nor thither, 

But looked where the truth was, and there have bileved (remained), 

Then were the baronage whole, that now is all to-dreved (driven apart) 

So wide ; 
But certes England is shamed through falseness and through pride. 

This poem has been summarised in detail because of its 
large significance. The author wrote before Langland was born. 
Yet here before him the plain message of the Plowman is 
delivered. Here is the same earnestness without desire for 
revolt, the same spirit of strong denunciation prompted by 



372 HISTORICAL WORKS chap. 

unselfishness, the same love of England and sorrow for her 
shame — above all, the same insistence on the need to seek out 
and glorify Truth. 

Likewise interesting in the study of Langland's work, as well as 
for its own sake, is the alliterative poem entitled A Treatise and 
Good Short Refreyte {Dispute) betwixt Winner and Waster, which 
will be discussed from other points of view when all the products 
of the so-called alliterative revival are examined together. In this 
place, however, it deserves notice as a satire of merit on the social 
conditions of England at the middle of the fourteenth century. 
Winner and Waster are the leaders of two hosts whom the poet 
sees in a vision ready for angry conflict. Each lays his case 
before King Edward III., who undertakes to be their judge. 
He stops their wrangling, and tells each to dwell where he is 
loved most, Winner together with the pope and cardinals of 
Rome, Waster in the busy streets of London, until he shall 
accompany the King on his Continental wars. The poem con- 
tains some 500 long lines, but is incomplete. It is remarkable 
for its freshness and force. 

In a short stanzaic poem entitled Sir Penny we have a 
fourteenth - century form of Latin rhymes of Map's time, the 
titular character being suggestive of Lady Meed. A satire on 
conditions in the reign of Richard II., in macaronic verse, begins 
as follows : 

Sing I would, but, alas ! descendant prospera grata; 
England sometimes was regnorum gemma vocata; 
Of manhood the flower ibi quoqne quondam floruit omnis, 
Now gone is that tower, traduntur talia sompnis, 
Lechery, sloth, and pride, hii sunt quibus Anglia paret, 
Sith truth is set aside, die qualiter Anglia staret. 

Latin had been all along the chief medium of clerical protest, 
and it was not suddenly abandoned. But English was bound to 
vindicate itself fully. English songs stirred the people tremendously 
when learned works were the reading of but a few. Gower's Vox 
Ciamaniis could have been in no large sense potent, but such 



vii HISTORICAL WORKS 373 

words as "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the 
gentleman ? " — the refrain of English poems of the same period 
— became the mottoes of revolt. With the incidental satire in 
Chaucer's work all are familiar. Like Langland's and Gower's, 
it was prepared for by works written in Latin, French, and 
English by clerks. 

In this connection may also be mentioned a stray satirical 
poem of later date, also a vision, which seems to betray in its 
setting the influence of The Pearl, and now bears the descriptive 
title Why I cannot be a Nun. 

A maiden who desires to be a nun, but whose father is opposed, goes 
walking one May morning in her garden to see "the sweet effect of April 
flowers," and listen to the song of beautiful birds. In a fair arbor she prays 
to God to help His handmaid "despised and in point to perish." Then 
she falls in a trance "among the herbs fresh and fine." While asleep, 
with her woeful head on a bed of camomile, she fancies that a fair lady 
addresses her by her own name, Katherine, saying that she has come to 
comfort her. The girl recognises before her the most beautiful and finely- 
attired lady she has ever seen, and straightway forgets all her mourning. 
Her companion, whose name, she discovers, is Experience, guides her to a 
nunnery, which is fair without but ill-governed within. There dwelt Dames 
Pride, Hypocrisy, Envy, Love Inordinate, Lust, Wanton, Vice. Dame 
Devout had been put to death by Dame Sloth and Dame Vainglory, Dame 
Chastity had "little cheer." Dame Patience and Dame Charity occupied a 
chamber outside the place. But Dame Envy was in every corner, and Dame 
Disobedient was very busy. .Experience explains at last to Katherine that 
she has shown her this convent " so full of sin " to reconcile her to her father's 
will. Not all nuns, but the most part, were " feeble, ignorant, and froward." 
Yet they should be what their attire indicates. "A fair garland of ivy green 
which hangeth at a tavern door is a false token as I ween, but if there be 
good wine and sure." Nuns should follow the example of holy virgin saints. 

In a thirteenth-century Satire on the Monks and People of 
Kildare (containing twenty stanzas of four lines each, with changing, 
but insignificant, refrain), various saints, ecclesiastics, and trades- 
people are bidden " hail," and briefly described. The minstrel's 
final appeal to his friends is " to drink deep and make them glad." 



CHAPTER VIII 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



Bible Paraphrase and Apocryphal Story 

In early Anglo-Saxon times it was in Northumbria that poetry 
flourished ; and the themes of the leading Northern poets, 
Csedmon and Cynewulf, were almost exclusively religious. The 
literary preeminence of Northumbria was soon, however, over- 
thrown, and for nearly six centuries scarcely a singer of note is 
to be found there. When at last Northern poets again appear, 
they are seen to write once more in the spirit of their long-distant 
predecessors : they treat with earnestness and power religious 
themes in verse. Late in the thirteenth century was composed 
in the North a noteworthy metrical paraphrase of the Psalms ; 
and in the fourteenth, lives of saints, legends, and other sorts of 
religious poems abound. 

In the South before 1150 the West-Saxon Gospels were 
transcribed. About 1300 a prose Psalter was prepared in the 
West Midland. But deserving more particular mention are the 
paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus, by an anonymous author in 
the South-East Midland, about 1250. Here we have the chief 
events of the Biblical account with little legendary embellishment, 
with little comment or sermonising. We find not only the salient 
features of the narrative of the first two books, but also certain 
parts of Numbers and Deuteronomy relating to the wanderings 
of the Israelites and the life of Moses. But how different is this 
374 



chap, viii RELIGIOUS WORKS 375 

from Csedrnon's work ! It is not simply that alliterative long 
lines have yielded to short couplets, and sonorous to limpid 
phrase. There is a fundamental change in the author's tone, 
and in his attitude towards the Bible. He wrote rather patron- 
isingly for the unlettered, whom he thought " ought to be as fain 
as are birds at daybreak when they are told sooth tales, in their 
native speech and with small words, of the hills of bliss and the 
dales of sorrow " ; and in the spirit rather of the rhymed chronicle 
than of the ancient epic. Moreover, he based his narrative not so 
much on the Bible itself as on a compendium of its substance, 
with a commentary, the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor, 
which for nearly a century had enjoyed great esteem. 

This work was also much utilised by the author of another 
poem of a somewhat similar character, but planned on a grander 
scale, the encyclopedic book of scriptural story, called the Cursor 
Mundi (" for almost it overrunneth all "), which challenges atten- 
tion at once by reason of its avowed purpose. It was written not 
for the clergy but for the laity ; not for those who could speak or 
read French, but for the common English of England ; not simply 
to edify and instruct, but to entertain and amuse. It was written, 
moreover, in deliberate competition with the popular romances, 
with which both the poet and his readers were familiar. Thus 
the poem begins : " Men yearn to hear gests and read romances 
in divers manners : of Alexander the Conqueror ; of Julius Caesar 
the emperor ; of the strong strife of Greece and Troy, where many 
thousands lost their lives ; of Brut the bold hero, the first con- 
queror of England ; of the mighty King Arthur, incomparable in 
his time; of the wonderful adventures of his knights, such as 
Gawain, Kay, and others of the Round Table ; how King Charles 
and Roland fought (with Saracens they wished no peace) ; of 
Tristram and his dear Ysolt, for whom he became mad ; of Yonec 
[the hero of a lay by Marie] ; of Amadas and Ydoine — stories of 
divers things, of princes, prelates, and of kings; many songs of 
divers rhyme, English, French, and Latin." This was an un- 
questioned fact. We have already seen how great was the mass 



376 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



of writings current in England on these secular themes. Men 
were always ready " to read and to hear " such pleasant works. 
Their influence, however, the author thought, was not always 
good : it made for licentiousness and loose living. " Love para- 
mours " had thereby become the fashion. He therefore offers 
a rival attraction. He will sing of the Virgin, a lady more true, 
loyal, and constant than any other, more beautiful and ready to 
reward. In order to build on a good foundation, he will begin 
at the beginning, namely, the Holy Trinity, and thence he will 
trace the history of the world as illustrating God's providence. 

Thus, by way of competition with the popular secular works of 
the day, was composed (c. 1320) a poem some 24,000 lines long. 
Such an immense accumulation of legendary material baffles 
adequate description in a short space. It is a fanciful account 
of the seven ages of the world : from the Creation to the time of 
Noah, from the Flood to the confusion of Tongues, from the time 
of Abraham to the death of Saul, from the reign of David to the 
captivity of Judah, from the parentage of Mary to the time of 
John the Baptist, from the baptism of Jesus to the finding of the 
Cross (the time of grace), the day of Doom and the state of the 
world thereafter. Very remarkable is that part which contains 
the legends of the Holy Rood. The work seems to have been 
extremely popular. 

Appended to the Cursor Mundi is an account of the Assump- 
tion of Our Lady, taken, the author says, from a Southern poem 
on that theme. This latter was written about the middle of the 
thirteenth century, and exists in various versions, either inde- 
pendently or embodied in a legend-cycle, in short couplets, in 
stanzas, or in prose. It is closely connected with Wace's poem on 
The Conception of Mary, but includes matter of other derivation. 
The legend itself arose in the early centuries of our era, and was 
widespread in many forms in Oriental as well as in Latin and 
other European languages. The earliest English version seems 
to have been prepared for the recitation of a minstrel, who 
appeals to his audience for quiet: "Sit ye now still, both more 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 377 



and less " ; but elsewhere the narrative is spoken of as a " lesson," 
and became, we know, a regular part of the Church service. At 
the conclusion we are informed that the archbishop, St. Edmund 
of Pontenay {i.e. Edmund Rich), granted an indulgence of forty 
days to any who heard or read it "with good-will." Moreover, 
it was affirmed that whenever the poem was read aloud no woman 
should that day die in childbirth, or any misadventure happen in 
field or street or hall. Such a claim, no doubt, stimulated to 
attention many practical folk who otherwise might have spent 
their time in worldly diversions ; and familiarity with the work 
would certainly confirm the credulous in their ready acceptance 
of the numerous " miracles of the Virgin " then current. .Christ 
is therein represented as promising to Mary whatever prayer 
she might make for the sick or sinful who served her truly. No 
matter if a man had transgressed in every possible way, Our 
Lady (" Queen of Heaven " and " Empress of Hell ") could 
obtain grace for him at the last hour of his life. As Chaucer 
says in his A B C: 

Soth is, that God ne graunteth no pitee 
With-oute thee : for God, of his goodnesse, 
Forgiveth noon, but it lyke un-to thee. 
He hath thee maked vicaire and maistresse 
Of al the world, and eek governeresse 
Of hevene, and he represseth his Justyse 
After thy wille, and therefore in witnesse 
He hath thee crowned in so royal wyse. 

As was almost inevitable, a large amount of apocryphal material 
was current among the English. We have a detailed account of 
Christ's ancestors and conception in the " song " on the Birth 
of Jesus. Fables of His enfances are narrated in The Childhood of 
Jesus, in a style that startles from first to last. Christ as an 
infant is represented as worshipped by dragons, wolves, and 
other wild beasts, and as performing the most extraordinary and 
unnecessary miracles. Perhaps the oddest of His boyhood 
exploits is His hanging of a pitcher on a sunbeam ; when His Jew 



378 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



companions try to do the same, they of course break their vessels, 
but Jesus makes them whole again. The short thirteenth-century 
English lives of Judas and Pilate are similarly embellished. 
Judas is represented as a foundling put out to sea alone, who 
turns out " a wicked bird," and has a career that reminds us now 
of Sir Gowghter's, now of Sir Degare's : he is wild and fierce in 
youth ; in his adventurous career he marries his mother. By 
repentance for his misdeeds he is led to enter the Lord's service, 
but he sins sadly, and dies a woeful death. Of the fictions about 
Pilate, the most striking is the difficulty in getting his body buried 
after the unhappy man has stabbed himself in the emperor's jail. 
Various unsuccessful attempts are made to conceal him elsewhere 
(in the Tiber, for example), but at last he is carried to a lake in 
the wilderness, where a rock opens and the corpse darts into 
it like an arrow shot from a bow. The story of Titus and 
Vespasian, and their revenge on Jerusalem and the Jews who 
contrived the Crucifixion, including the legend of St. Veronica, is 
contained in The Vengeance of God's Death, a poem of 3770 lines 
in short couplets, written by an anonymous monk in the third 
quarter of the fourteenth century (in the neighbourhood of 
London), and in a closely-allied alliterative poem entitled The 
Siege of Jerusalem. The former is based for the most part on a 
single French work, with additions, it would seem, from the 
Gospel of Nicodemus, the Gesta {Acta) Pilati, and the Legenda 
Atirea. It is a sort of religious epic in praise of Christ. Other 
shorter poems tell of The Fall and Passion, and the joys and 
sorrows of Christ and Mary. The history of the redemption 
is unfolded in a fifteenth -century translation of the Speculum 
Humanae Salvationis, over 5000 lines long and artificially 
constructed. 

In Wycliffe's time came a reaction against the overloading 
and distortion of Biblical narrative by apocryphal tales, and one 
great poet then arose who took pains to eliminate legend in his 
rewriting of Scripture narrative. Practically nothing of the sort 
appears in those admirable poems, Cleanness and Patience, in 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 381 



that of the refined author of the Ancren Piwle, to whom the 
work has been absurdly ascribed. The homilist was surely of 
humble origin, and knew best the homes of the peasantry. 

" And what if I ask besides, that it may seem odious, how the wife stands, 
who when she cometh in heareth her child scream, seeth the cat at the flitch, 
and the hound at the hide ; her cake burneth on the hearth ; and her calf 
sucketh ; the earthern pot runneth over into the 'fire ; and the churl cbideth." 
Surely no attractive scene, but probably true to life, like that suggested by the 
following passage : "Ask these queens, these rich countesses about their 
manner of life. Soothly, soothly, if they rightly bethink themselves and 
acknowledge the truth, I have them to witness that they lick honey from 
thorns. They buy all the sweet with two parts of bitter. ... It is nowhere 
near all gold that there glitters, though no one knows but themselves what 
often pierces them. When it is thus with the rich, what thinkest thou of 
the poor that are insufficiently dowered and ill provided for, as most all 
gentlewomen now in the world that have not wherewith to buy themselves a 
bridegroom of their own rank, and give themselves into servitude of a man of 
lower station with all that they have. Wellaway ! Jesu ! What unworthy 
chaffar ! Well were it for them were they on the day of their bridal borne to 
be buried ! " 

This presents the dark side of the picture of Anglo-Norman 
England, the degradation of the gentlefolk of pre-Conquest 
times. Among the impoverished ladies of better days the priest 
no doubt found many disposed to follow his counsel and take 
the veil. " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine 
ear ; forget also thine own people and thy father's house." This 
is the text from which he preaches his vigorous sermon. How 
vastly inferior it is to the untarnished eulogy of Maidenhood by 
the author of The Pearl ! 

But prose homilies of the Anglo-Saxon style soon ceased to 
be written, and we have no more to record for a long time. In 
the library of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, is preserved a 
manuscript volume of English sermons written at the latter end 
of the fourteenth century, from which has been printed an 
exceptionally interesting Sermon against Miracle Plays. But 
this brings us down to the age of Wycliffe, under whose influence 
sermonising took a new turn : the use of apocryphal legend, 



382 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



amusing anecdote, and far-fetched allegory was then severely 
frowned upon, the itinerant preachers substituting in their stead 
plain, straightforward expositions of Scripture texts with con- 
temporary application. 

In sermons the foreign taste for rhyme early gained the day. 
As early as in the reign of Henry I. the Latin septenarius was 
employed in a conspicuous and influential English poem, known 
as the Poema Morale. The departure from the old methods of 
poetic writing was accompanied by a change of tone. There is 
here far less imaginative freedom, less terse and picturesque 
phraseology, than in the Anglo-Saxon religious poems. In com- 
parison with them, the style lacks distinction, but it is nevertheless 
clear and effective. The poem, moreover, has some of the old 
subjective quality, which gives it interest. The author was of 
an earnest, contemplative cast of mind, and his appeal for holy 
living on earth, as a means of averting sorrow hereafter, sounds 
sincere. If not in form, yet in idea he follows the traditions of 
the English past. He seems to have written in North Wiltshire, 
where memories of Alfred, ^Elfric, and Wulfstan were doubtless 
still cherished. 

In a similar metre was written in the early thirteenth century 
a comprehensive book of homilies which the author entitled 
Ormulum, " because Orm made it." To judge from his name and 
the many Scandinavianisms in his language, the author was of 
Danish descent, and lived in one of the Anglian counties on the 
east coast, perhaps in the district of Peterborough. He was a 
Canon Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, and was stimulated 
to his immense undertaking by another Augustinian canon, named 
Walter, his brother, he explains, in triple wise — in the flesh, by 
baptism, and of the same house. His plan involved the pro- 
duction of a complete set of discourses for the services of the 
year, and he worked it out patiently with obvious self-satisfac- 
tion. If bulk was a thing to be proud of, he certainly could 
plume himself justly, for though the unique manuscript of his 
book in an incomplete state contains over 10,000 long lines, that 



religious works 383 



seems to have been only about one-eighth of its original length. 
His object he explains in the dedication to Walter : 

Ice hafe wennd inntill Enngl'ssh, godspelless hall5he lare, 

Affterr pat little witt patt me, min Drihhtin hafe]?]? lenedd. 

pu pohhtesst tatt itt mihte well, till mikell frame turrnenn, 

3iff Ennglissh folic, forr lufe off Crist, itt wollde 3erne lernenn. 

And foll5henn itt, and fillenn it, wipp pohht, wipp word, wipp dede. 

First he gives the Gospels in the mass-book for the whole year, 
and after each its interpretation and application. In so doing, 
he insists that he has added nothing of his own except what is 
necessary for the metre, and in truth he nowhere evinces origin- 
ality of idea. His simple desire was to make it easy for the 
people " tunnderrstanndenn " the truth as taught by the Church. 
His thought accords with that of ^Elfric and his Saxon disciples. 
With the works of St. Augustine and Bede he was quite familiar, 
while the influence of more recent writers, Anselm, Abelard, 
Bernard, and the mystics, is distinctly less marked. Few traces 
of the French dominion appear in his writing. 

The length of the work attests sufficiently Orm's industry and 
untiring zeal. One needs only to read a few pages to discover 
the careful pains he bestowed throughout in the elaboration of 
his style. Determined that nothing should be obscure or abrupt, 
he sacrificed all other merits to this end. Little is left unsaid. 
Repetition is constant. The style is hopelessly diffuse. With 
perfect complacency the good monk executed unwaveringly and 
persistently his allotted task. His verse, though smooth and 
finished, grows very monotonous. On and on the paraphrase 
glides like an oily stream. Readers nowadays whom it does not 
repel it must needs put to sleep. If the spirit of Layamon 
may be said to reappear in the fourteenth century in the author 
of Gawain and the Green Knight, Orm's is manifest in Gower. 
And the difference in merit is about equal perhaps in each case. 
Yet we must not underestimate the value of the poet's work. 
In the year 1229, by an edict of the Council of Toulouse, laymen 



384 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



were prohibited from possessing a copy of the Bible except 
in parts specially authorised ; and unquestionably such a work 
as the Ormulum was then a boon to the piously inclined. 

To the grammarian to-day the book is of high importance 
not only because of its length, but also because of its precision. 
The author was a careful scholar, a philologist, and spelt with 
scrupulous exactness according to a method of his own, of which 
the most- striking feature is the regular doubling of consonants 
after such vowels in the same word as were then pronounced 
short. This method he earnestly enjoined scribes of his work to 
perpetuate ; but we have no evidence that his book was ever 
copied. The large folio manuscript, of which part is preserved in 
a mutilated condition, seems to be the author's autograph, written 
curiously on odd bits of parchment in a bold script. It is one 
which Junius, Milton's friend, rescued from destruction and pre- 
sented to the Bodleian. 

In the South no cycle of homilies appears to have been 
written, but instead cycles of saints' lives and legends. In the 
North, however, in the second half of the same century, was 
composed a remarkable body of sermons of similar scope and 
plan to the Ormulum, but in short couplets, and far more forcible 
and interesting. French influence is apparent in various ways 
— in metre, phraseology, style, and sources. Notable is the 
frequent introduction of narrative to enforce the teaching of the 
Gospel paraphrase. Legend joins hands with homily, according 
to contemporary taste. 

Isolated poems of a homiletical character were composed in 
large numbers in different parts of the land and at all times from 
the middle of the thirteenth century to the end of our period. 
To go into detail here is unnecessary. They are all much of a 
kind. Some are mystical and magnify the love of God and the 
Virgin. Others move to repentance by emphasising the misery 
of human conditions and the vanity of the transitory world. 
Some plead by recalling with tenderness Christ's passion or the 
Five Joys of Mary. Others awake fear by enumerating the 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 385 



Fifteen Signs of Judgment, or the Eleven Pains of Hell. Morality 
is inculcated by expounding the Ten Commandments or the 
Seven Deadly Sins. Religious instruction is provided in explana- 
tion of the Seven Sacraments, the Paternoster, and the Creed. 
And all this in verse — rhymed theology, not poetry. Most note- 
worthy perhaps of these short sermons are those entitled Sinners 
Beware, Death, Long Life, Doomsday, and A Little Sooth Sermon. 
The last-named is a warning to evil-doers, among them false 
chapmen, bakers, and brewers who give wrong measure ; the 
proud young men that love Malkin, and those maidens that love 
Jankin ; those that come to church to talk of secret love, thinking 
not of mass, but of Wilkin and Watkin, of Robin and Gilot at 
the ale-house and afterwards. 

Naturally enough, the denunciatory or terrifying sermons of 
the thirteenth century are far less attractive to us than the per- 
suasive and mystical. Of these latter one of the earliest, in 
alliterative prose, is entitled the Wooing of Our Lord, in which 
we have the same spirit that animates the Ancren Riwle, warm, 
tender feeling, yielding its finest fruits in devotion. Thus the 
address begins : 

Jesu, sweet Jesu, my love, my darling, my Lord, my Saviour, my honey 
nectar-drop, my balm ! Sweeter is the remembrance of Thee than honey-dew 
in the mouth. Who is there that may not love Thy lovely face ? What heart 
is there so hard that may not melt at the remembrance of Thee ? Ah ! who 
may not love Thee, lovely Jesu ? For within Thee alone are all the things 
united that ever may make any man worthy of love to another. . . . Jesu, 
my precious darling, my love, my life, my beloved, my most worthy of love, 
my heart's balm, my soul's sweetness, Thou art lovesome in countenance, 
Thou art altogether bright. An angel's life it is to look upon Thy face, for Thy 
cheer is so marvellously lovesome and pleasant to look upon that if the 
damned that seethe in hell might eternally see it, all that torturing pitch would 
appear but as a soft warm bath, for, if it might be so, they had rather boil ever- 
more in woe and evermore look upon that blissful beauty than be in all bliss 
and forego the sight of Thee. Thou art so sheen and so white that the sun 
would be pale if it were compared with Thy blissful countenance. If I then 
will love any man for fairness I will love Thee, my dear life, mother's fairest 
son. Ah, Jesu, my sweet Jesu, grant that the love of Thee be all my delight. 

2 C 



384 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



were prohibited from possessing a copy of the Bible except 
in parts specially authorised ; and unquestionably such a work 
as the Ormulum was then a boon to the piously inclined. 

To the grammarian to-day the book is of high importance 
not only because of its length, but also because of its precision. 
The author was a careful scholar, a philologist, and spelt with 
scrupulous exactness according to a method of his own, of which 
the most- striking feature is the regular doubling of consonants 
after such vowels in the same word as were then pronounced 
short. This method he earnestly enjoined scribes of his work to 
perpetuate ; but we have no evidence that his book was ever 
copied. The large folio manuscript, of which part is preserved in 
a mutilated condition, seems to be the author's autograph, written 
curiously on odd bits of parchment in a bold script. It is one 
which Junius, Milton's friend, rescued from destruction and pre- 
sented to the Bodleian. 

In the South no cycle of homilies appears to have been' 
written, but instead cycles of saints' lives and legends. In the 
North, however, in the second half of the same century, was 
composed a remarkable body of sermons of similar scope and 
plan to the Ormulum, but in short couplets, and far more forcible 
and interesting. French influence is apparent in various ways 
— in metre, phraseology, style, and sources. Notable is the 
frequent introduction of narrative to enforce the teaching of the 
Gospel paraphrase. Legend joins hands with homily, according 
to contemporary taste. 

Isolated poems of a homiletical character were composed in 
large numbers in different parts of the land and at all times from 
the middle of the thirteenth century to the end of our period. 
To go into detail here is unnecessary. They are all much of a 
kind. Some are mystical and magnify the love of God and the 
Virgin. Others move to repentance by emphasising the misery 
of human conditions and the vanity of the transitory world. 
Some plead by recalling with tenderness Christ's passion or the 
Five Joys of Mary. Others awake fear by enumerating the 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 385 



Fifteen Signs of Judgment, or the Eleven Pains of Hell. Morality 
is inculcated by expounding the Ten Commandments or the 
Seven Deadly Sins. Religious instruction is provided in explana- 
tion of the Seven Sacraments, the Paternoster, and the Creed. 
And all this in verse — rhymed theology, not poetry. Most note- 
worthy perhaps of these short sermons are those entitled Sinners 
Beware, Death, Long Life, Doomsday, and A Little Sooth Sermon. 
The last-named is a warning to evil-doers, among them false 
chapmen, bakers, and brewers who give wrong measure ; the 
proud young men that love Malkin, and those maidens that love 
Jankin ; those that come to church to talk of secret love, thinking 
not of mass, but of Wilkin and Watkin, of Robin and Gilot at 
the ale-house and afterwards. 

Naturally enough, the denunciatory or terrifying sermons of 
the thirteenth century are far less attractive to us than the per- 
suasive and mystical. Of these latter one of the earliest, in 
alliterative prose, is entitled the Wooitig of Our Lord, in which 
we have the same spirit that animates the Ancren Riwle, warm, 
tender feeling, yielding its finest fruits in devotion. Thus the 
address begins : 

Jesu, sweet Jesu, my love, my darling, my Lord, my Saviour, my honey 
nectar-drop, my balm ! Sweeter is the remembrance of Thee than honey-dew 
in the mouth. Who is there that may not love Thy lovely face ? What heart 
is there so hard that may not melt at the remembrance of Thee ? Ah ! who 
may not love Thee, lovely Jesu ? For within Thee alone are all the things 
united that ever may make any man worthy of love to another. . . . Jesu, 
my precious darling, my love, my life, my beloved, my most worthy of love, 
my heart's balm, my soul's sweetness, Thou art lovesome in countenance, 
Thou art altogether bright. An angel's life it is to look upon Thy face, for Thy 
cheer is so marvellously lovesome and pleasant to look upon that if the 
damned that seethe in hell might eternally see it, all that torturing pitch would 
appear but as a soft warm bath, for, if it might be so, they had rather boil ever- 
more in woe and evermore look upon that blissful beauty than be in all bliss 
and forego the sight of Thee. Thou art so sheen and so white that the sun 
would be pale if it were compared with Thy blissful countenance. If I then 
will love any man for fairness I will love Thee, my dear life, mother's fairest 
son. Ah, Jesu, my sweet Jesu, grant that the love of Thee be all my delight. 

2 C 



386 RELIGIOUS WORKS chap. 

The following conclusion suggests the reason of its composi- 
tion : 

Pray for me, my dear sister. This have I written thee because that words 
often please the heart to think on Our Lord. And therefore when thou art 
in ease, speak to Jesus and say these words ; and think as though He hung 
beside thee bloody on the rood ; and may He through His grace open thy 
heart to the love of Him and to ruth of His pain 

It is particularly noticeable how strong everywhere is the 
tendency to allegory in these religious writings ; and in a few 
instances it took excellent shape. We have already discussed 
Grosseteste's Castle of Love among Anglo - French works. In 
A Bispel we have an interesting allegory of the Redemption. 
But deserving of more particular mention here is the Soul's 
Ward, a metrical homily on Matthew xxiv. 43 : " But know this, 
that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the 
thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have 
suffered his house to be broken up." This is a free treatment 
of part of the De Anima of Hugo of St. Victor, of which another 
(Kentish) version was appended to the Ayenbite of Inwyt: 

The master of the house, according to the homilist, is man's Wit (Intellect). 
His wife is Will. Her servants — the five wits — are reckless ; they seek to 
please the housewife, not the master. In the house is the soul — God's treasure. 
Vice seeks entrance to murder it. Four cardinal virtues guard it. Prudence 
is doorkeeper ; next are Strength, Moderation, Equity. Each watch has her 
proper duties. Prudence sends a messenger to the house to arouse its inmates 
— namely, horrible-looking Fear, the announcer of Death, who is coming with 
a thousand devils to draw sinners to hell. At the request of Prudence he 
describes the plan. He pictures the damned in gruesome wise, emphasising 
the despair of the wretched souls in hideous torment. Each of the sister 
virtues gives advice. Wit, God's constable, is grateful for his four daughters, 
guardians of his castle and treasure. Prudence next announces another 
messenger, Love of Life, who comes direct from heaven, and begs him to tell 
of God and His abode. Then he describes heavenly bliss. Prudence proposes 
to cast out Fear, but Moderation points out the value of each messenger's 
warning, one of woe, one of weal. Fear must depart, however, while Love 
of Life is within. The whole household becomes subject to Wit. The com- 
mands of Wit all should obey, and resist those of Will — performing the ordin- 
ances of the four cardinal virtues that he may come to everlasting happiness. 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 387 



As an example of a homilist using lyric verse for didactic 
purposes, we may take the case of William of Shoreham, who in 
the early fourteenth century wrote several pleasing poems on the 
Sacraments, the Deadly Sins, the Commandments, and the like, 
including a fine Song on the Joys of the Virgin, translated, it is 
said, from a hymn by Grosseteste. Shoreham's favourite metre 
is the septenarius, with variations of one kind or another, now 
with a short one-accent tag at the end of the second long line, 
now with middle as well as end rhyme. He uses also the rime 
cou'ee and other minstrel metres. His poems, however, are less 
mechanical and dull than the subjects might lead one to suppose. 
He is no ignorant person writing for the populace, but an 
educated and thoughtful theologian, trying to win the cultivated 
by ingenious argument. It is not with common men, we may 
well believe, that he would be disposed to combat, as he does, 
atheistic ideas : he would not have to convince them of error in 
"weening that there be no Saviour or other life." If he examines 
the mysteries of the Christian faith (original sin, the Trinity, and 
the like) popularly but with subtlety, it was doubtless for the sake 
of the higher lay classes, who in their worldliness, or because 
of the new revelations of natural science, had become alarmingly 
sceptical. 

Shoreham probably derived his name from his birthplace, a 
small village near Otford, a short way from Sevenoaks. He 
appears to have been originally a monk of the priory of Leeds, 
and was admitted the first vicar of Chart -Sutton by Walter 
Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury (1313-27). Evidently he 
was esteemed by his superiors, for Archbishop Simon Mepham, 
we are informed, gave an indulgence of forty days to all who read 
his poem on the Deadly Sins ; and, it must be said, he was very 
generous, for the poem is worth reading without any such reward. 

In the year 1309 there was a magnificent feast at Canterbury, 
when Ralph was installed abbot of St. Augustine's. No less than 
six thousand guests were present, and it is likely that William* of 
Shoreham was among the number. Now on this solemn occasion 



388 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



some seventy shillings, we learn, were paid to minstrels who sang 
to the accompaniment of the harp. Thus did the clergy seek 
entertainment from without ; thus they became familiar with the 
minstrel's arts. Shoreham, imitating their popular methods, sugar- 
coated theology with agreeable rhyme, and men swallowed it 
without distaste. 

Lydgate, in his Bochas, remarks how 

In perfect living, which passeth poesy, 
Richard hermit, contemplative of sentence, 
Drew in English The Prick of Conscience. 

The Prick of Conscience, by Richard Rolle of Hampole, is a poem of 
nearly 10,000 four-accent lines, with from eight to twelve syllables 
in each, and was written in the Northern dialect, though the 
majority of the numerous manuscripts in which it is preserved 
belong to the South. The author remarks concerning it : "I reck 
not though the rhyme be rude, if the matter thereof be good." 
And, in truth, the poem as a poem has little merit, despite the 
vigour and earnestness that characterise it throughout, and 
occasional very picturesque passages. The matter, moreover, is 
altogether depressing. It is divided into seven parts, the titles of 
which are as follows : Of the beginning of man's life ; Of the 
unstableness of this world ; Of death, and why it is to be dreaded ; 
Of purgatory ; Of doomsday ; Of the pains of hell ; Of the joys of 
heaven. Richard felt that if a reader took this matter well to 
heart it might make his conscience tender, "and drive it to dread 
and meekness and to love and to yearning for heaven's bliss, and 
to the amending of his misdeeds." This was possibly true in the 
poet's time, but hardly to-day. The modern reader will find in 
the book many odd notions regarding the universe, some curious 
bits of folklore and legend, an amusingly definite picture of pur- 
gatory, heaven, and hell, with full information of what will happen 
at the resurrection and judgment-day. But he will find little that 
throws light on contemporary social conditions, almost nothing 
original in idea, no sign of humour, no relief. Nevertheless, the 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 389 



poem deserves study for the sake of its language, and because of 
the interest that attaches to it as the work of one of the most 
productive, and (within his sphere) one of the most popular 
English writers of his time. Richard also wrote a notable English 
paraphrase of the Psalms, a manuscript of which, it seems, was 
owned and used to advantage by the modern commentator, Dr. 
Adam Clarke. 

Various other metrical homilies exist — such as the Three 
Messengers of Death, How to hear Mass, and De Festo Corporis 
Christi. The so-called Speculum Guy de Warwick is a sermon 
represented as being preached by Alcuin to Guy, when the latter 
is remorseful for his sins. But a mere mention of such works 



is right ynow, ywis, 
And mochel more ; for litel heuinesse 
Is ryght ynow to mochel folk I gesse. 



Legends and Lives of Saints 

The history of legends runs parallel to that of homilies — from 
Anglo-Saxon times down. They were for the most part produced 
by devout clergy for the edification of the people, and show a ■ 
combination of the same elements, only with different emphasis : 
the homilist illustrated his teachings by examples of righteous 
doing, while the legend-writer seldom failed to point the moral of 
his saintly biography or pious tale. 

Two kinds of legendary production are to be kept distinct — 
that prompted by individual desire to exalt one or another saint, 
and that dictated by general need of the clergy for didactic 
material in handy form to convey to laymen. The poetic quality 
of the two kinds is, of course, unequal. It was possible to reach 
high excellence in narrating a saint's life when a gifted poet wrote 
under a peculiar inspiration on a favourite theme. There was no 
escape from dull monotony when a single author tried to com- 
pass the whole domain of pious example, or was simply one of a 



39Q RELIGIOUS WORKS 



crowd engaged in the mechanical job of compilation. Chaucer 
wrote the Life of St. Cecilia with tender sympathy, but he would 
certainly have wearied as soon of narrating in conventional, pre- 
determined style numerous lives of saints as he did of narrating 
those of otherwise celebrated men and women. The twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries were the flourishing period of legends in 
mediaeval England, the era of most of the original and inde- 
pendent poems of the class. Before 1300 the saint's life became 
on the whole a sterile form of literature, being mainly repre- 
sented in all-embracing cyclopaedias, prepared, with purely prac- 
tical intent, by scholars who were not poets. 

While in the time of Cynewulf the lives of Guthlac, Juliana, 
Andreas, and Elene were recorded in the ancient epic manner as 
independent poems, later, in that of ^Elfric, it became the custom 
to group various legends together and recount them in rhythmical 
prose. This latter style was still in favour at the dawn of Middle 
English production, when saints' lives reappear in literature, 
showing much the same characteristics as those just preceding 
the Conquest. The alliterative prose lives of Margaret, Juliana, 
and Catherine, written in the South (probably in Dorsetshire) 
about 1200, were doubtless all translations from the Latin, but in 
phrasing they have the vigour and dramatic force of the Saxon 
style. As regards contents, they have, of course, the faults of their 
originals : they abound in miracles of every sort, and paint with 
precision fearful tortures such as the Inquisition never rivalled. 
The heroines themselves appear strangely bold. They address 
their persecutors in language studiously offensive and insulting. 
They even tackle fierce devils in physical encounters. In their 
prayers and orations they incline to sum up the whole matter of 
the Testaments. Both in word and deed they are extravagant and 
unsympathetic. If one reads these lives in an uncompromising 
state of mind, it is hard to suppress a feeling of irritation, hard to 
refrain from ridicule. But that would be to subvert sober judg- 
ment of their influence and to let prejudice disturb a consideration 
of their style. It must, in truth, be admitted that there is genuine 






RELIGIOUS WORKS 391 



power in this early prose. Would one picture to oneself a devil, 
let one read this description of Ruffinus, brother of Belial, and 
how he treated St. Margaret when he appeared to her in person 
in answer to her prayer : 

" And there came out of a corner hastily towards her a wicked wight of 
hell in a dragon's form so hideous that it terrified them when they saw it. 
That unseemly one glistened as if he were overgilt. His locks and his long 
beard blazed all of gold, and his grizzly teeth seemed of swart iron, and his 
two eyes steeper (more prominent) than stars and gemstones, and broad as 
basins. In his horned head on either side, on his high hooked nose, thrust 
smothering smoke out, exceedingly bad in taste, and from his sputtering 
mouth sparkled fire out, and out went his tongue, so long that he swung it 
all about his neck, and it seemed as though a sharp sword went out of his 
mouth, that glistened as a gleam and lightened all of flame. And all that 
stead became full of strong stench, and shimmered and shone of his infernal 
shadow. He stretched himself, and stirred toward this meek maiden, and 
yawned with his wide jaw upon her ungainly, and began to croak and to 
crane out his neck, as if he would swallow her altogether." Margaret soon 
recovered from her very great terror, and prayed for aid. Thereupon "the 
dragon rushed on her instantly and set his sorry mouth, unmeasurably mickle, 
on high over her head, and reached out his tongue to the fringe of her heels, 
and made her to vanish into his belly. But in Christ's honour and to his [the 
devil's] damage, the rood-token, with which she was weaponed, saved her, 
and became his bane, so that his body burst to pieces amid-hips, and the 
blessed maiden, wholly unmarred, without any pollution, went out of his 
belly, glorifying aloud her High Healer in Heaven." 

Or again, would the reader learn the reason why such legends 
were popular, or how they were made known, let him consider the 
following passage, part of Margaret's petition to God just before 
she is taken to heaven : 

" Whosoever writeth a book of my life-leading or getteth it when written, 
or holdeth it and hath it oftenest in hand, or whosoever readeth it or listeneth 
blithely to the reader, O Wielder of Heaven, let all their sins be forgiven 
them. Whoso in my name maketh chapel or church, or findeth in them 
light or lamp, grant them, O Lord, the light of heaven. In the house where 
a woman pineth with child, so soon as she mentioneth my name, hastily help 
her and hear her prayer, so that in the house be not born no mislimbed bairn, 
neither halt nor humpbacked, neither dumb nor dead, nor vexed of devils. 



••-»^yu«*--^ ■'iu^«** 1 j ■ ■ ■ • - j " 1 • 



; \r^ 



392 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



But whosoever my name mentioneth and hath it oft in mouth, lovely Lord, at 
the last doom release them from death." Thereupon it seemed as though 
thunder dinned, and a burning dove descended from heaven and raised up the 
prostrate maiden with the rood, and promised to grant her prayer and even 
more than she asked. Thus spake the Lord : " Wheresoever thy body or 
any of thy bones be, or the book of thy pain, let the sinful man come, and let 
him lay his mouth thereon, and I will cure him of his sins, and no evil wight 
shall dwell in the abode wherein thy martyrdom is written, but all of the 
house shall be glad in God's grith (peace) and in ghostly love." Now St. 
Margaret is in Paradise, " where she shineth sevenfold sheener than the sun." 

It may seem strange that this " chaste gem " should be the 
one to preside over childbed, to assist women in labour. But it 
is a well-attested fact that her aid was often solemnly invoked, 
even at the birth of royal children. In Rabelais, Garganelle 
refers superciliously to the saint's reputation in this regard. 

Certainly it was by no accident that the three saints so pro- 
minently exalted at this time were all famous for maiden purity. 
The Church saw with alarm how frequently young women listened 
to the enticing voice of devoted suitors and indulged their fleshly 
passions, bred of luxurious ease and self-indulgence. Chivalry 
favoured sentiment, and sentiment opened the door to sin. 
Against the dangerous wolf of sensuality, too frequently disguised 
in the sheep's clothing of romantic love, the better clergy raised 
a hue and cry. They warn the unmarried of the perils along 
the path of dalliance in which they tread ; they try to turn the 
attention of all to the joys unspeakable of heaven. Now they 
picture in glowing colours the sorrows of that grim place to 
which " the primrose path " is said to lead ; now, changing from 
threat to entreaty, from stern to alluring tones, they exalt the 
everlasting happiness of resting in the bosom of God, so far above 
the transitory pleasures of union with men that duty is made 
transcendently attractive, and virtue appears rewarded by increase 
of natural joy. Mystical, they maintain, fully replace physical 
ties. For them, the splendour of Paradise cast a shadow upon 
earth. 

The earliest extant French poem {c. 1050) is a saint's life, that 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 393 



of St. Alexis, a moving story preserved in many forms, which, in 
French and English, verse and prose, illustrate the gradual change 
in mediaeval Christian sentiment, not always to its improvement. 
The Normans brought to England a firmly established taste 
for legends, and, as has been pointed out in a previous 
chapter, they eagerly perpetuated the hagiography of their new 
possessions, which was much better than their own. The 
romantic style of their narratives, contrasting with the more 
epical Saxon mode, soon gained almost exclusive sway. Under 
the new influences the manner and metre of English legendary 
poems changed, though their old spirit often lingered. Early in 
the thirteenth century were composed many saints' lives in the 
East Midland and Southern dialects, some of which are preserved 
in later redactions. Notable are a few in simple four-lined 
strophic form ; for example, another life of " Maiden Margaret," 
treated this time more gently and charmingly, " with words fair 
and sweet." A very interesting account of St. Gregory, com- 
posed after a French source before 1250, has also internal rhyme. 
Still more lyrical is the legend of St. Eustace {alias Placidas, or 
Isumbras), effectively told in strophes of six lines each. In such 
separate narratives as these we have perhaps the best products of 
the type in early Middle English, so far as externals are concerned. 
Unfortunately, many of the most beautiful legends found no 
adequate treatment in vernacular poetry, and were familiar to 
the people at large only in succinct summaries sapped of 
vitality. 

As the number of saints' days increased and the legend 
grew in popularity as a regular part of ecclesiastical worship, 
accompanying or replacing the sermon, the convenience of 
having extensive books of saints' lives, which could be used by 
the rank and file of the clergy on the festivals duly appointed, 
became so manifest that in the last quarter of the thirteenth 
century two native legendaries arose, one in the south and the 
other in the north of England. The former (in long rhymed 
couplets) was probably the combined work of the monks of 



394 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



Gloucester (the chronicler Robert amongst them) ; the latter (in 
short couplets or strophes) took shape in the diocese of Durham. 
The Northern cycle is the more artistic, French influence being 
more evident in its clear, flowing style. Here legend proper is 
found combined with pious tale and homily in a way significant 
of the use to which the book was put. The Gloucester cycle, 
being a co-operative product, is for the most part impersonal and 
mechanical. Its prevailing mediocrity is occasionally relieved, 
however, by a spirited piece like the life of Thomas a Becket, 
which is full of feeling and impressiveness. The work appears 
never to have been given complete or definitive form. The large 
number of manuscripts in which it is found show great variation 
of contents, order, and dialect. Along with the Northern cycle, 
it held its own in one form or another throughout the fourteenth 
century; but both afterwards yielded place to other collections 
later prepared, and neither was reproduced by the early printers. 

Between 1260 and 1270, it appears, was composed a much 
more important Latin compilation of the same kind, the Legenda 
Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, a prominent Dominican preacher, 
who was appointed Archbishop of Genoa in 1292, and died in 
1298. His work, too, was intended for use in religious service, 
and was read aloud in churches. It was for its time a dis- 
criminating compilation, and merited the extraordinary favour 
it at once met with and maintained unabated to the Reformation, 
when, along with the cult of the saints therein lauded, it 
became the subject of bitter attack. '"Tis one of the devil's 
proper plagues," writes Luther, "that we have no good legends 
of the saints, pure and true. Those we have are so stuffed full 
of lies that without heavy labour they cannot be corrected. ... 
He that disturbed Christians with such lies was doubtless a 
desperate wretch, who surely has been plunged deep in hell." 
Alas, poor Jacobus, to be so misunderstood ! 

The Legenda Aurea served as the basis of a Scottish collection 
of legends ascribed to John Barbour, and apparently composed in 
his old age (c. 1380-90). Unlike its sources, it was written from 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 395 



an independent, personal point of view, for private reading, and 
has more poetical value than any other legendary in the native 
tongue. Shortly after Barbour's work (c. 1400), appeared the 
Festial of English sermons, "necessary for simple curates and 
parish priests," compiled by one John Mirk, a Canon Regular of 
the monastery of Lilleshall, in Shropshire, who also wrote a book 
on The Instruction of Parish Priests. The former, as the title 
indicates, was for use in public worship, and provided sermons 
for the chief feast-days, following the order of the calendar. 
Like Barbour's, it too derived in the main from the Legenda 
Aurea, but was more complete and vastly more popular : the 
one exists in a single manuscript, the other became one of the 
most frequently reproduced of mediaeval English works. It was 
still a standard authority when printing was introduced, and no 
less than eighteen editions appeared between 1483 and 1532. 
Limited to women saints, and therefore probably produced for 
the use of nuns, was the collection of thirteen lives made in 
1443-46 by a doctor of divinity, Osbern Bokenham, Austin Friar 
of Stockclare in Suffolk. The author imitated the learned, 
artificial style of Lydgate, who was then at the height of his 
fame. About 1438 the Legenda Aurea itself (or rather a French 
version of it) was literally translated into English, and, with 
certain changes, was twice printed by Caxton. 

Meanwhile, a large number of saints' lives had appeared 
separately in various districts of England, in many varieties of 
metrical structure, and continuously from 1300 on. Like Chaucer 
and Barbour in the fourteenth century, prominent writers in the 
fifteenth, such as Lydgate and Capgrave, busied themselves with 
this style of composition, writing as artists, however, not as 
preachers, and adding grace and vigour to themes which in the 
big compilations had been squeezed almost completely dry of 
interest by the hydraulic press of didacticism. 

There is a wide range in these mediaeval legends. Native 
saints of Great Britain and Ireland appear in the collections along 
with those of Europe and the Orient. There are no closer limits 



396 m RELIGIOUS WORKS chap. 

in the eras of their nourishing than in those of the worthies of the 
Monk's Tale. Naturally there is also great diversity in the nature 
of the narratives themselves : some are fired by poetic con- 
ceptions, others are irredeemably absurd ; some are human and 
delicate, others fantastic and grotesque. In general, the older 
ones are the best. As time advanced there was a degeneration 
of legendary style. Miracles became more and more prodigious, 
and the devil increasingly prominent. Extravagance and gross- 
ness developed in the process of vulgarisation. Fine tales were 
often overloaded with extraneous information on history, geo- 
graphy, and science, if not otherwise spoiled by excessive 
preachment. 

The history of legends, though very complicated and bewil- 
dering, repays careful study. They clearly contain material of 
very ancient origin only factitiously or adventitiously brought into 
their present connection, being indeed a rich mine of myth and 
folklore as yet only roughly worked. They reveal in their gradual 
development the unlike influences that moulded the present 
peculiar compound of our religious conceptions. They exhibit 
the politic history of the Christian Church in gaining universal 
dominance, its compromises with paganism and heathendom in 
precept and practice. Being the most popular religious works 
of an era of devout Christian enthusiasm, not only in England 
but throughout civilised Europe, they did much to knit together 
the people of all lands in a common devotion, a common 
sympathy, a common hope. 

The lives of saints were ever present in the minds of the 
English people, and not of any one race or class amongst them. 
Their production was favoured by the combined sentiment of 
both Saxons and Normans, of native and foreign clergy, of the 
lowly and the high-born. Saints were regularly appealed to for 
aid in emergencies of daily life. Their days were celebrated in 
divine service. Mysteries exhibited them in lifelike perform- 
ance on the stage. Their acts were commemorated in paintings 
on parchment, canvas, and glass, in frescoes, stone sculptures, 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 397 



wood-carving, and metal designs, in tapestry and embroideries — 
in every sort of art. To saints in large number churches and 
colleges were dedicated ; to their care public institutions and 
private enterprises were committed. Pilgrimages were made to 
their shrines in all parts of the world. Their example actuated 
men and women to lives of austerity and renunciation, to noble 
self-sacrifice and heroic .courage in the performance of duty, at 
home and abroad. " for Christ and the Church." 

We can easily understand why, in the heat of a reaction 
against popery, Erasmus and Luther felt called upon to denounce 
the saints' lives because they were then accepted as true by the 
faithful. But it is less intelligible why there now exist so many 
Gentiles of imagination " who walk in the vanity of their minds " 
and refuse to judge legends except by standards of theological 
truth. Legends, in fact, are little more than the romances of 
religion, originating and developing in much the same way, as 
various in nature — and about as reliable in fact — as the poems 
of heroic adventure with which they yied for popularity. They 
were composed by the same poets in the same metres, recited by 
the same minstrels in the same surroundings, read by the same 
people in the same manner, as the tales of King Arthur and 
Charlemagne. They nourished at the same time and reflect the 
same conditions. Mutually the two sorts of narrative influenced 
each other. They met a similar fate. 



Visions 

Of all types of legendary homiletic literature none is more 
interesting than that called the "vision," which, because of its 
peculiar vogue and influence in the Middle Ages, deserves separate 
consideration. 

Every people that has conceived a heaven or hell'has tried to 
picture with some minuteness what each is like, and imaginary 
joy and torment the world over show a marked resemblance. 
Oriental ideas of the state of the good or bad hereafter, like those 



398 RELIGIOUS WORKS chap. 

of classical poetry and Jewish prophecy, when studied in connec- 
tion with the presentments of Christian visions, reveal fundamental 
agreements of thought, even mutual influence. From the death of 
Christ to the end of the mediaeval period apocalyptic productions 
were continuously enjoyed. Early in our era fanciful writings of 
the sort were very numerous, but only the Revelation of St. John 
was accorded a place in the canon of the New Testament. Not 
until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did the vision again 
abundantly flourish ; from the fourteenth century date most of 
those in the English vernacular. 

The earliest English visions known to us are those of Furseus 
and Drihthelm, which Bede records. The former was a monk 
of Irish blood, a man of holy life and work. In a three days' 
trance it was vouchsafed to him, under the guidance of protecting 
angels, to witness much of the bliss of heaven and somewhat of 
the sorrow of hell, and this marvellous experience he related in 
full when his soul returned to his body — not without sore afflic- 
tion, however, for it is said that though the weather was then 
wintry cold, and he was thinly clad, he sweated while he spoke, as 
if the heat were intense. This vision had little influence on 
later ones in England, though it exists in Anglo-French : it is 
rather an allegorical warning homily than a detailed description of 
future states. The vision of Drihthelm, on the other hand, antici- 
pates the mediaeval Continental style. It presents points of 
resemblance with the Book of Enoch, and the non-Christian 
Vision of Thespesius recounted by Plutarch. Here the doctrine 
of purgatory is definitely advanced, as nowhere else, outside of 
Bede, in Anglo-Saxon writings. Again we have the trance, but 
only a single guide, a being of radiant face and attire. The two 
companions enter a vast and terrible valley in which the departed 
hover betwixt heat and cold. There from out the deep darkness 
appear globes of lurid flames full of human souls. Drihthelm is 
attacked by fierce demons, but is rescued from their burning 
tongs by the intervention of his guide. Afterwards he sees the 
realm of the blest. 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 399 



Of Middle English visions, that of St. Paul differs from the 
rest in being the elaborate product of a long-continued growth, 
not a new or supposedly new creation. .Modelled on the 
Apocalypse of St. Peter (a work of the latter part of the first 
century), it took shape in Greek as early as the fourth cen- 
tury, was expanded in Latin in the ninth, and renewed with 
much power in the thirteenth. Four different metrical redactions 
in Middle English have been published, the oldest of c. 1300, the 
latest by John Audelay (1426). Each contains a terrible picture 
of the fortunes of the damned. At the very gates of hell are 
sinners suspended from burning trees by various parts of their 
bodies. Within are a burning cauldron and a revolving wheel, 
means of piteous torment. Into a fearful flood the wicked fall 
from an overarching bridge, which the righteous pass unscathed. 
Souls are depicted gnawing their own tongues, boiling in pitch, 
suffering from reptiles hung about their necks, obliged to fast 
when they would eat — in all sorts of torture commemorative of 
their sins. 

Still better known was the Vision of Tundale. Over fifty manu- 
scripts of it in its Latin form are extant, scattered throughout 
Europe, and numerous versions in French, German, Italian, and 
Icelandic. An English version in rhymed couplets is preserved 
in several manuscripts of the fifteenth century. This vision, dated 
in the prologue at 1149, was evidently prepared with the idea of 
describing in systematic order all sorts of torture previously con- 
ceived, and the result has been truly called an " epic of torment." 
Genuinely fearful are the stinking valley of purgatory, in which is 
a huge sheet of iron gleaming hot, so that it melts the murderers 
who are laid thereon and who flow through like wax, then regain 
their shapes and undergo the same process repeatedly as before ; 
the lake full of monsters spanned by a spiked bridge, not the 
breadth of a hand but over two miles long, which robbers must 
traverse with what they have stolen ; the huge beast Acheron, 
which swallows thousands of the covetous at once ; not to 
mention the special abode of the arch-fiend Lucifer in hell, in 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



the description of which the author passes almost beyond the 
limits of endurance. 

Tundale was an Irish nobleman, handsome and strong, but 
cruel and vainglorious, who preferred to give money to jugglers 
and jesters rather than to priests, and of course it was but fitting 
that he should have a foretaste of his future reward. One 
day, when in anger from an altercation about a payment due 
him by a friend, he was struck by an invisible hand and had all 
the semblance of death from a Wednesday to a Saturday. It was 
then that he had his vision and suffered some experimental 
tortures. A similar privilege (so it was deemed) was accorded to 
another knight, one Sir Owain, a warrior under King Stephen, 
who, being afflicted by sorrow for his misdeeds, sought a means of 
absolution, and for that reason ventured into a subterranean 
cavern near Lough Derg in Donegal, which Christ had revealed 
to St. Patrick as an entrance to the Otherworld. He saw enough 
in this brief visit to show him the wisdom of leading a virtuous 
and pious life on earth. Other knights take warning ! 

St. Patrick's Purgatory has already been mentioned in con- 
nection with Marie de France, who turned a Latin form into 
French verse in her later years. The Latin author was a Bene- 
dictine monk, Henry of Saltrey, who nourished about the same 
time as Tundale. His concoction gained very wide credence, 
and various early English and Continental scholars refer to the 
legend as a real event. It is accessible in three Middle English 
versions, one of the last quarter of the thirteenth century, and 
one in the Auchinleck MS. Sir Ovvain's situation, it will be 
observed, differs from that of Tundale, who simply sees what he 
sees in a trance, in that the hero (like Ulysses, ^Eneas, and 
Orpheus) visits the underworld in the flesh and returns to tell his 
tale. The idea of Henry's work was probably suggested by the 
existence of the cave, which was before surrounded by awesome 
mystery. Certainly it was long consecrated by the legend to 
pious veneration. There, it was believed, others might go, see, 
and conquer the devil's might, if girt with the complete armour of 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



righteousness and purity. There Calderon placed the scene of 
one of his plays. There to this day, despite the repeated exposure 
of the fraud, large numbers of the ignorant congregate on super- 
stitious pilgrimage. 

The Vision of the Monk of Evesham occurred during a 
trance from the night before Good Friday to Easter Eve, 1196, 
when St. Nicholas appeared to him and showed him not only the 
dismal valleys of *the wretched but the radiant plains of the blest. 
This document was written, it appears, by Adam, sub-prior of the 
monastery of Evesham, chaplain of St. Hugh of Lincoln. The 
Latin version was englished about 1482. 

The Vision of Thurkill tells more strikingly of a revelation by 
St. Julian to a husbandman of Essex in the year 1206. The 
author is supposed to be Ralph of Coggeshall. Most interesting 
is his account of a purgatorial theatre, where fiends sat about 
enjoying performances by the damned, the special attractions 
being a proud man, a hypocritical priest, a vainglorious knight, and 
a corrupt lawyer. The last, it turned out, was one of Thurkill's 
acquaintances who had died that very year. He acts as in 
life, pleads and accepts bribes, then is forced to swallow and re- 
swallow his ill-gotten gain in the form of molten gold. Visions 
gave their authors too obvious a chance to convey forcible rebukes 
to their contemporaries not to be constantly used for that purpose. 
The knight's performance in this " infernal pageant " reminds us 
of the concluding scenes in the closely-allied Debate of the Body 
and the Soul and Dunbar's Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, of 
which we shall presently treat. 1. 

Such accounts as these of purgatory and hell being found most 
useful in keeping the God-fearing, devil-dreading people in the 
path of rectitude and ever subservient to the Church authori- 
ties, they were zealously furthered, and their effect was steadily 
increased by judicious embellishment, with particular application 
to cases in point. Undoubtedly they were responsible in some 
measure for the epidemics of nervous diseases and the abnor- 
malities of life and conduct that were frequent in the Middle 



402 . RELIGIOUS WORKS chap. 

Ages among the morbidly devout. What people in a trance, or 
under the influence of religious ecstasy, imagined they saw, they 
could easily persuade their credulous selves and their fellows was 
in fact true, and there was no reluctance on the part of most to 
accept as a divine revelation the definite statements they made, 
which indeed no mortal could deny. 

In some of the treatises above mentioned appears a description 
of the so-called earthly paradise, where Adam and Eve dwelt, and 
glimpses are given of the Paradise of Revelation. A fuller and 
incomparably finer account may be found in The Pearl, a pure 
and exalted vision of the happy hereafter, wherein is especially 
depicted the life of the Brides of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem. 
The description of the Holy City here closely follows the Apoca- 
lypse of St. John, and no contrasts with purgatory and hell are 
suggested. But an encomium of mystical joys, no matter how 
beautiful, was not so likely to effect the conversion of evil men 
and stimulate devotion to dutiful works as dire warnings of eternal 
woe for offenders ; and for this, as well as for other reasons, The 
Pearl was not so popular as works of vastly less merit. Of all 
English visions it is by far the most original, and as an imagina- 
tive creation, the only one among them that deserves high praise. 
The Divine Comedy, of course, is the culmination of the vision 
type, conceived more grandly and executed with nobler art than 
any work of the kind written before or since. Nothing like it, we 
may be sure, will ever be undertaken again ; for nowadays, if we 
send our souls into the invisible " some letter of the after life to 
spell," the only answer we are likely to have returned is "thou 
thyself art heaven and hell." We have given over being precise 
about what happens after death. 

Here need only be mentioned other uses of the vision as a 
literary device : for satire, of a serious or of a burlesque character, 
as in the Apocalypse of Golias and in various short French poems ; 
above all, for allegory of nearly every sort, not only secular, as 
in the Romance of the Rose (which had such a prolific progeny of 
imitations), but also didactic, as in the Dream of Hell and Road 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 403 



to Paradise of Raoul de Houdenc, the Tournament of Antichrist 
•by Huon de Mery, or such English works as Winner and Waster 
and The " Vision of Piers Plowman. The style of allegorical 
" pilgrimage " reached elaborate development in the first half of 
the fourteenth century in the extensive trilogy of Guillaume de 
Deguilleville, narrating the careers of Human Life, the Soul, and 
Christ, a tedious work which was translated into English in 
Lydgate's time and forms a sort of prototype of the famous 
Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan. The reader will also recall 
the voices of the dead speaking in the pious tales concerning 
Pope Gregory's mother, the Child of Bristow, and the Ghost of 
Guy — together with the Otherworld journey of Thomas of 
Erceldoun and the exceptionally interesting Voyage of St. 
Brendan, the latter of which appealed to Dante and many 
others long ago, and still fascinates us, even in no 'better form 
than the succinct prose-narrative in the Golden Legend, where it 
found a safe abiding-place. 



Books of Edification 

Books of edification, religious rather than didactic, yet both at 
once, were numerous in mediaeval England in Latin, French, and 
English. Those in English have peculiar value for the student of 
social conditions in the island, being definitely directed against 
evils then prevailing; and their literary interest is far greater 
than one would expect. 

First may be mentioned a unique and admirable treatise, 
differing from the rest in the purpose of its production, as indi- 
cated by the title, the Ancren Riwle, or " Rule of Nuns." This 
important book was written early in the thirteenth century by a 
truly lovable old man, at the urgent solicitation of three young 
ladies of gentle birth, " sisters of one father and of one mother, for 
their goodness and nobleness of mind beloved of many," who in 
the spring-time of life had forsaken all the pleasures of the 



404 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



world and become anchoresses. Their retreat was at Tarente in 
Dorsetshire ; and it has been plausibly conjectured that their 
counsellor was Richard Poore, Bishop first of Chichester, then of 
Salisbury and Durham, who was born at Tarente, who endowed 
the foundation there, and whose heart was buried there after his 
death in 1237. 

The author was strictly orthodox without being a formalist. 
He rejoices that no heresy was to be found in England in his 
time. But he implies that there was a great deal of bickering 
about the rights and advantages of different orders of the Church. 
Knowing that the nuns would certainly be asked to what order 
they belonged, he bade them make answer that they were of the 
order of St. James, for the object of their retirement was to keep 
themselves "pure and unspotted from the world." Herein, he 
adds, "is religion, and not in the wide hood, nor in the black, 
nor in the white, nor in the grey cowl." He distinguishes sharply 
between the outward and the inward rule, the former being simply 
the " handmaid " of the latter, to be changed and varied accord- 
ing to every one's state and circumstances. He urges the nuns 
not to vow to keep anything as commanded except obedience, 
chastity, and constancy in their abode. 

It is noteworthy that only two of the eight books of his 
admonition are occupied with the outward rule. It was the 
spirit, not the forms, of religion that this sympathetic, broad- 
minded ecclesiastic desired to inculcate. Not profound or meta- 
physical, but straightforward and clear-headed, a man of good 
judgment, and familiar with the ways of the world, he was an 
excellent adviser to the young women who sought his friendly 
counsel. He can be stern, as in the following passage, where he 
is dealing with the evil of licentiousness, which he vehemently 
hated, and which must have been then sadly common, even 
among the clergy : " Foul speech is of lechery or of other unclean- 
ness, which unwashen mouths speak at times. Men should stop 
the mouth of him who spitteth out such filth in the ears of any 
recluse, not with sharp words but with hard fists." He begs the 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 405 



maidens to beware especially of idle priests. "Believe secular 
men little," he urges, "the religious still less." 

People say of anchoresses that almost every one hath an old woman to feed 
her ears ; a prating gossip who tells her all the tales of the land ; a magpie 
that chatters to her of everything that she sees or hears ; so that it is a 
common sawng, " From mill and from market, from smithy and from nunnery, 
men bring tidings.' Christ knows, this is a sad tale; that a nunnery, which 
should be the most solitary place of all, should be evened to those very three 
places in which is the most idle discourse. But would to God, dear sisters, 
that all others were as free as ye are of such folly. Those looking out of 
windows are in greater danger than inmates of a castle gazing from behind 
battlements at their besiegers. The warrior of hell shoots, as I ween, more 
bolts at one anchoress than at seventy-and-seven secular ladies. 

The domestic and social duties of the nuns are somewhat 
naively indicated. They need not deny themselves all satis- 
factions ; they may keep one cat. Among the things to be 
confessed regularly are such sins as the following, which end 
the list : " of play, of scornful laughter, of dropping crumbs, or 
spilling ale, or letting things grow mouldy, or rusty, or rotten ; 
clothes not sewed, wet with rain, or unwashen ; a cup or a dish 
broken, or anything carelessly looked after which we are using, or 
which we ought to take care of; or of cutting, or of damaging, 
through heedlessness." 

The author, it is clear, was a learned and cultivated man. 
He quotes freely and appropriately from the works of important 
theologians, like Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory, Anselm, 
and especially Bernard of Clairvaux. With the Bible he was, of 
course, thoroughly conversant, and he shows familiarity with 
Ovid, Horace, and other secular writers. 

In accord with the spirit of the time, he was much given to 
the literal interpretation of symbols and to elaborate allegory. 
Commenting on the words of St. James : " If any man thinketh 
that he is religious, and bridleth not his tongue, his religion is 
false; he deceiveth his heart," the good man writes : "He saith 
right well, 'bridleth not his tongue,' for a bridle is not only in 



406 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



the mouth of the horse, but part of it is upon his eyes, and part 
of it on his ears ; for it is very necessary that all the three should 
be bridled. But the iron is put in the mouth and on the 
light tongue ; for there is most need to hold when the tongue 
is in talk, and has begun to run. For we often intend, when 
we begin to speak, to say little, and well-placed words ; but the 
tongue is slippery, for it wadeth in the wet, and slideth easily 
on from few to many words." In another place we find this 
graphic illustration: "'The devil,' we are told, 'is a liar and a 
father of lies.' She, then, who moveth her tongue in lying, 
maketh of her tongue a cradle to the devil's child, and rocketh it 
diligently as a nurse." 

A significant example of the author's method may be seen in 
the following parable, which is peculiarly interesting because the 
situation was no doubt suggested by some chivalrous romance. 
Obviously, no strict line was drawn between the figures of 
romance and religion, as was most natural, because both 
embodied men's ideals and were together ever present in 
mediseval minds. The Church profited by the fascination of 
romantic tales and gained a hearing for religious truths by 
conveying them in similar guise. The young women to whom 
the writer addressed himself had doubtless, when in the gay 
world of their girlhood, listened gladly to the lays of Britain, and 
longed for an experience of romantic love similar to that so 
enticingly presented there. They were now encouraged to 
continue their dreams of love ; but the unseen object of their 
affection was to be the Lord Christ. 

There was a lady who was besieged by her foes within an earthen castle, 
and her land all destroyed, and herself quite poor. The love of a powerful 
king was, however, fixed upon her with such boundless affection, that to 
solicit her love he sent his ambassadors, one after another, and often many 
together, and sent her jewels both many and fair, and supplies of food, and 
the help of his noble army to keep the castle. She received them all as a 
careless creature, that was so hard-hearted that he could never get any nearer 
to her love. What wouldst thou more ? He came himself at last and showed 
her his fair face, as one who was of all men the most beautiful to behold, and 



vni RELIGIOUS WORKS 407 

spoke very sweetly and such pleasant words that they might have raised the 
dead from death to life. And he wrought many wonders, and did many mighty 
works before her eyes, and showed her his power, told her of his kingdom, 
and offered to make her queen of all that belonged to him. All this availed 
nothing. Was not this disdain wonderful ? For she was never worthy to be 
his scullion. But, through his debonertt, love had so overcome him that he at 
last said, "Lady, thou art attacked, and thy foes are so strong that without 
help of me thou canst not by any means escape their hands, so that they may 
not put thee to a shameful death. I will for the love of thee take upon me 
this fight, and deliver thee from those that seek thy death. Yet I know 
forsooth that among them I shall receive a mortal wound, and I will gladly 
receive it to win thy heart. Now then, I beseech thee, for the love that I 
show thee, that thou love me at least after my death, if not while I am alive." 
The king did so in every point. He delivered her from all her enemies, and 
was himself grievously maltreated, and at last slain. But by a miracle he 
arose from death to life. Would not this lady be of a most perverse nature 
if she did not love him after this above all things ? 

This King is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who in this manner wooed 
our soul, which the devils had besieged. And He, as a noble wooer, after 
many messengers and many good deeds, came to prove His love, and showed 
by His knightly prowess that He was worthy of love, as knights were some- 
times wont to do. He engaged in a tournament, and had, for His lemman's 
love, His shield everywhere pierced in battle, like a valorous knight. This 
shield, which covered His godhead, was His dear body, that was extended on 
the cross, broad as a shield above, in His outstretched arms, and narrow 
beneath, because, as men suppose, the one foot was placed upon the other 
foot. . . . There are three things in a shield — the wood, the leather, and the 
painting. So was there in this shield — the wood of the cross, the leather of 
God's body, and the painting of the red blood that covered it so fair. Again 
the third reason. After the death of a valiant knight men hang up his shield 
high in the church, to his memory. So is this shield, that is, the crucifix, set 
up in a church, in such a place in which it may be soonest seen, thereby to 
remind us of Jesus Christ's knighthood, which He practised on the cross. His 
lemman beholdeth thereon how He bought her love, and let His shield be 
pierced, that is, let His side be opened, to show her His heart, and to show 
her openly how deeply He loved her, and to draw her heart to Him. 

This emphasis on love towards God, conceived in a chivalrous 
spirit, became characteristic of religious writings. " Behold, the 
bridegroom cometh," the theme of succeeding centuries, was 
calculated to arouse and stimulate particularly the women of the 



4 o8 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



Church to religious rapture. The pious and devout of the 
other sex, from St. Bernard to Richard Rolle, were meanwhile 
pouring forth their emotions in "love-longing" to the Holy 
Virgin. Hermits and solitary clerks humbly adored Our Blessed 
Lady, and pictured her with all beauty of appearance and grace 
of courtesy, while their brothers in secular life, like in spirit but 
unlike in profession, enjoyed reverie about ladies of romance. 
Gentleness, tenderness, and affection developed with the growth 
of mysticism. 

In the Ancren Riwle is reflected not only the chivalrous life 
of the time, but that of the common people. We see the poor 
pedlar crying his soap and the rich mercer selling his more 
valuable wares. We read of "ball-play," of "wrestling and other 
foolish sports," and " the play in the churchyard." Envious men 
are compared to "jugglers who know of no other means of 
exciting mirth but to make wry faces and wrench their mouths 
and scowl." The author occasionally uses a popular proverb, 
as " the cock is keen (brave) on his own dunghill " ; and in one 
case quotes the beginning of a popular song, " Ever is the eye 
to the wood-lie (grove), wherein is he I love," which in one manu- 
script is given at greater length. 

The Ancren Riwle is preserved also in Latin and French, and 
the English version may not be the original. It is, at all events, 
one of the most valuable monuments of early Middle English 
prose. In it we find a considerable intermixture of French 
words, but nevertheless a form of the language near to late West- 
Saxon. The style is sometimes involved and abrupt, but on the 
whole remarkably graceful and coherent. We regret exceedingly 
that more such accomplished Latinists as the author did not 
have definite incentive to write in English. The Rule exists not 
only in the original Southern, but also in a Northern dialect, and 
was modernised in the fourteenth century. 

Of the Latin Rule of St. Benedict (Benet), written c. 516, we 
have various versions in Old and Middle English, of the South 
and North, in prose and verse, more or less literal and complete, 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



prepared for monks and nuns, from the time of yEthelwold 
(c. 960) to that of Caxton. Ailred's Regula Incltisarum was 
translated into English prose early in the fourteenth century. 

A book of. edification of the ordinary type is the Ayenbite of 
Inwyt (The Remorse of Conscience), by Dan Michel, of North- 
gate in Kent. The literary merit of this production is far from 
commensurate with its linguistic worth. Not only is it not an 
original work, it is not even a respectable translation. The text 
swarms with mistakes of the most elementary character, so that 
it is frequently quite unintelligible by itself. We have a manu- 
script in the author's own handwriting, and in it he gives us exact 
information regarding the date of its completion, "in the eve of 
the holy apostles Simon and Judas," 1340. He was, he tells us, a 
brother of the cloister of St. Augustine at Canterbury, and wrote 
especially for the uneducated English near his home in Kent, 
"that they might know how to shrive and cleanse them in this life." 

Dan Michel does not say that this work is not his own, and 
the fact that it is but a translation from the French is a modern 
discovery. Now, however, it is well known that it is based in its 
entirety on a treatise usually entitled Le Somme des Vices et des 
Vertus, which was composed in 1279 by Friar Lorens (Laurentius 
Gallus) at the command of Philip III. of France, son of St. Louis. 
Lorens belonged to the order of Friars Preachers, and was the 
King's confessor. Because of the circumstances of its composi- 
tion the work was sometimes called Le Somme le Roi, or Li Livres 
Roial des Vices et des Vertus ; and possibly the high station of 
the writer's patron contributed to its popularity, for no work of 
edification seems to have been more widely circulated among the 
nobility in Europe for two centuries after its writing. Several 
English versions, in verse as well as in prose, appeared after Dan 
Michel's. In Caxton's time it still held favour, and he decided 
to perpetuate it (with alterations) under the title of The Book 
Ryal, or the Book for a LCyng. 

y It is hard for us to appreciate justly the value of a mediaeval 
treatise of this kind. To us it soon grows tiresome, for un- 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



adulterated ethics we find dull, and no graphic illustrations or 
suggestive comparisons relieve its pious monotony. But still we 
must acknowledge that the Somme is worthy of praise, for in it 
the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, as then accepted 
by the orthodox, were clearly and methodically set forth, with 
much erudition, moreover, and some elegance. This no doubt 
commended it to the clergy, and accounts for its frequent repro- 
duction. It is unsafe, however, to estimate the influence of a 
mediaeval work by the number of manuscripts extant. Secular 
tales were often transmitted by word of mouth so as to become 
familiar to thousands, though seldom preserved in writing, while 
faithful scribes were continually copying works of edification 
which remained comfortably in the monastery or private library, 
safe from destruction by over-use or exposure. 

Chaucer's Parson's Tale was thought until very recently to be 
nothing but a free redaction of Lorens' Somme, and various con- 
jectures were made to explain the divergencies between the two 
works : it was greatly interpolated by a person whose views were 
more orthodox than those of the poet ; the inconsistencies and 
faults of arrangement were due to the fact that Chaucer but 
partially revised his material ; and so on. But these conjectures 
must now be put aside. Though the immediate source of the 
Tale still remains undiscovered, it has been clearly shown that it 
was probably an abridged combination of a sin-tract by William 
Peraldus, a Dominican, who died in 1255, with a work on 
penitence by Raymond of Pennafort (a friend of Grosseteste's), 
written as early as 1243, and extraordinarily popular among the 
clergy from 1250 to 1400. The latter affords not only the general 
structure of the Parson's treatise, but also a considerable part of 
its phraseology. The discussion of the Seven Deadly Sins is in 
reality a digression. Chaucer probably followed closely, in general 
scheme at least, a Latin or French work based on these sources, 
though he may have departed from it at will in subordinate 
features. He was plainly no theologian, and made no pretence of 
literal exactness. 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



This meditacioun 
I putte it ay under correcioun 
Of clerkes, for I am nat textuel ; 
I take but the sentens, trusteth wel. 
Therfor I make protestacioun 
That I wol stonde to correcioun. 

In these words of the Parson the poet apparently indicates his 
own attitude towards his work. Though he seems to have been 
acquainted with the original early in life, there is no evidence to 
determine when the translation was made. This edifying treatise 
Chaucer planned to be the last " tale " on the journey to Canter- 
bury. As the pilgrims near the holy shrine, it is fitting for them 
to become serious, in contemplation of their supposedly pious 
purpose, and the Parson is represented as choosing this means to 
put them in the proper mood. Gower, for his Mirour de VOmme 
and Confessio Amantis, utilised some treatise on Virtues and Vices, 
which resembled Le Somme le Roi, and (more closely) a French 
Mir'eour du Monde, but which was more amplified than either. 

In connection with these works should be examined another 
didactic treatise of a similar character, the Handlyng Synne of 
Robert Mannyng of Brunne (Bourne), who dwelt farther north in 
Lincolnshire. We have already become acquainted with Robert 
Mannyng as the author of a valuable rhymed chronicle, written 
to familiarise the common people with the facts of English 
history. This work was not completed until 1338, but then the 
poet must have been advanced in years. At all events, thirty- 
five years earlier, in 1303, he had in hand the important poem 
that now concerns us. 

Like Dan Michel's work, Robert's is also a translation from 
the French, but the French of an Englishman named William 
of Wadington, whose Manuel des Pechies (note Robert's odd 
rendering of the title) offers an interesting contrast to that of 
Friar Lorens. Lorens, we have seen, was the confessor of a 
king, a man in the most refined and courtly surroundings, a 
dignitary of high rank, who handled his native language with 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 



ease and elegance. William represents himself as a humble 
person, born in a little place where was neither " burg ne cite," 
and acknowledges the truth, that his French is very poor. 

If Friar Lorens was a much more significant person than 
William of Wadington, it was the opposite with their translators. 
Robert of Brunne is decidedly a more important figure than 
Dan Michel, -more skilled as a writer, more attractive as a man. 
They resemble each other, however, in their attitude towards 
their work. No more than Michel did Robert write for clerks 
(since his matter was accessible to them), but for the common 
people. 

For lewd (unlearned) men I undertook 

In English tongue to make this book. 

For many be of such manner 

That tales and rhymes will blithely hear ; 

In games, in feasts, and at the ale, 

Love men to list [to] trotevale (merry talk) ; 

That may fall oft to villainy, 

To deadly sin or other folly. 

For such men have I made this rhyme, 

That they may well dispend their time, 

And therein somewhat for to hear 

To leave all such foul manner, 

And for to kunne (be able to) know therein 

That they ween no sin be in. 

Robert of Brunne was no rapt mystic, no abstract philosopher. 
His horizon was limited ; but within his range of vision he saw 
clearly. Evidently averse to pedantry and cant, he spoke 
popularly with simplicity. Like Bishop Grosseteste, of whom 
he gives us interesting information, he too delighted in the 
harping of lays. The story of Arthur and the tales of bygone 
Britain he was able to recount enthusiastically in his old age. In 
such a man the unlearned might well have confidence, for his 
solicitude for their welfare was unfeigned. His attitude towards 
them was one of kindly sympathy, without chilling condescension 
or forbidding piety. 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 413 



The Handlyng Synne, unlike the Ayenbite and the Parson's 
Tale, is in verse (12,632 lines long), and an adaptation of its 
original, not a mere translation. It agrees with these works 
of Michel and Chaucer in being a book of edification in which 
a consideration of the Seven Deadly Sins occupies a large 
part ; but it differentiates itself from them by being replete 
with anecdotes : it is, in fact, a great collection of tales. 

Robert omits six of William's least interesting stories, but 
inserts double the number in more than ample recompense. 
One of these tells of a miser-parson in Cambridgeshire ; another 
of a Norfolk bondman who reproved a knight for not respecting 
the sanctity of a churchyard ; a third of a Suffolk man who 
was taken out of purgatory by two masses that his wife got 
sung for him (in this tale Robert remarks that such prayers 
are really efficacious only if " the priest be good and clean ") ; 
and one of certain dishonest executors of the poet's own 
neighbourhood, Kesteven, who suffered for their sins (for always 
"false executors end wickedly"). Thus, by examples of wrong- 
doing in their vicinity, Robert brought his teaching home to 
his hearers. 

Of all his tales none perhaps is more striking or has a more 
interesting history than that of the sacrilegious carollers in the 
churchyard, who, being cursed by the abbot for their irreverence, 
are forced to continue dancing without interruption for a whole 
year, without shelter and without food. It is preceded by the 
following words : 

Caroles, wrestlings, or summer games — 

"Whosoever haunteth any such shames 

In church, or in churchyard, 

Of sacrilege he may be afraid ; 

Or interludes, or singing, 

Or tabour-beating, or other piping — ■ 

All such thing forbidden is 

While the priest standeth at mass. 

Robert is here, as always, practical and definite in advice. He 



4H RELIGIOUS WORKS 



pleads against profanity, gambling, and going to the taverns ; 
he urges a stricter observance of the Sabbath ; he warns his 
readers against the evils attendant on fairs and meetings. 
At tournaments all seven sins, he declares, are manifest, and 
clerks who joust are much to be blamed. Miracle -plays are 
apt to be "a sight of sin"; they must not be played in ways 
and groves. Women should not assemble to vie for the garland, 
which it was customary to accord to the most beautiful ; " it 
is a gathering for lechery, and full great pride, and heart- 
heaving." They must not indulge in popular superstitions that 
the Three Sisters come to the cradles of new-born infants to 
determine their weird ; they must not put meat out for false 
gods, or believe in witchcraft, necromancy, raising the devil, 
looking in swords, basins, and the like. They should 

Be measurable in all things : 

Of all wisdoms that shall (en)dure 

The most (greatest) wisdom then is measure. 

Robert explains that envy is the chief sin of Englishmen, 
as lechery is that of the French ; but certainly, if his statements 
are correct (and they are abundantly confirmed by the remarks 
of other writers of this time and century), lechery was a vice 
terribly widespread in England, even among the clergy. The 
poet urges women, if they must have a lover, to choose any 
one rather than a priest. 

But howsoever men preach or spell, 
Of priests' wives men hear even tell, 
Of other wives I will nought say, 
They do not wrong but all day. 

He deplores the extravagance of women's dress, the elaborate 
headgear, saffroned wimples, kerchiefs, trailing skirts, and other 
novelties ; he thought that many displayed their figures lewdly, 
and were too self-indulgent, that they spoiled their children by 
heedlessness and vanity. But he approved of marriage : 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 415 



Nothing Jesus Christ more quemeth (pleaseth) 

Than love in wedlock where men it yemeth (keepeth) ; 

Nor nothing is to man so dear, 

As woman's love in good manner. 

A good woman is man's bliss 

Where her love right and steadfast is ; 

There is no solace under heaven 

Of all that a man may neven (name), 

That should a man so much glew (joy) 

As a good woman that loveth true. 

Though not so tensely vehement as Langland, Robert is 
equally earnest in denouncing the abuses of the time. He 
too, in pleading the cause of the poor, reproved the faults of 
the rich. He grew indignant when he saw poor men shivering 
at rich men's gates, crying for alms, getting sometimes only 
a beating for their pains. Grasping lords, robber knights, gilded 
youth, covetous landowners, harsh judges and assisors, deceitful 
lawyers, usurious merchants, tricky traders, and the like, he 
roundly denounces. Yet, while he rebukes the rich for their 
vices, he also points out the offences of the poor, especially 
their irreverence in church, and their neglect of worship for 
wanton amusement ; -he pictures servants wrongfully revelling 
after their masters have gone to bed, sitting up to cockcrow 
over their riot. 

We get hints, moreover, in Robert's writing of the approach- 
ing revolt of the peasants. He is very outspoken. In his 
chronicle he divides kings into two classes — the fools and the 
wise, those that did wrong and those that did right. Men 
in his time were beginning to rebel against the tyranny of the 
nobility, and to discriminate between noblemen by inheritance 
and in reality: "Lordings — there are enough of them; of 
gentlemen there are but few." He too proclaims: "Woe to 
the land where a child is king." 

If thus, in outspoken denunciation of the evils of his time 
and in sympathy for the masses, Robert of Brunne anticipates 
Langland, in the form of his work he anticipates Gower. The 



4 i6 RELIGIOUS WORKS 



Handlyng Synne forms a sort of prototype to the Confessio 
Amantis, inasmuch as in both cases a large number of tales 
are narrated in exemplification of the Deadly Sins, albeit the 
wrong-doing is of a different character, and the tales for the 
most part are of a different style. 

The Seven Deadly Sins were a subject which English writers 
from the times of Alcuin to the Reformation dwelt on with 
great persistency. In the^Ancren Riwk pride is represented as a 
lion, envy as a venomous serpent, wrath as a unicorn, sloth as 
a boar, covetousness as a fox, gluttony as a swine, lechery as 
a scorpion. And the numerous progeny of each are named in 
careful order. Of the little pigs of gluttony, for example, we 
read : " The first is called Too Early, the second Too Daintily, 
the third Too Voraciously, the fourth Too Largely, the fifth 
Too Often, in drink more than in meat. Thus are these pigs 
farrowed." Or again, the proud are called the devil's trumpeters, 
the envious his jugglers, the wrathful his knife -throwers, the 
sluggards his bosom- sleepers or dear darlings, the gluttons his 
manciples, the lecherous the lowest in his court. In the 
Ayenbite of Inwyt the Seven Sins are described as the heads 
of the terrible beast of hell, and are elaborately examined in 
many subdivisions. Pride is here, as regularly, treated first as 
" root " of the rest. It alone has seven " boughs," while avarice 
appears with no less than ten. In the Parson's Tale, after the 
discussion of each Sin, is placed its corresponding remedium. 

William of Shoreham wrote a spirited poem about the Seven 
Deadly Sins ; with Richard Rolle they were a favourite theme ; 
they served Wycliffe as the basis of a long tract ; Gower used 
them more than once as a mould for his thought. Numerous 
other writers of less consequence treated them in various forms, 
sometimes ranging them in struggle with the virtues. More 
picturesque and original, however, than any other presentation 
of the theme in the fourteenth century is that of Langland : 
his realistic portrayal of a representative of each Sin confessing 
to Repentance is perhaps the most striking part of his admirable 



RELIGIOUS WORKS 417 



book. To succeeding writers likewise the subject afforded 
inspiration. Dunbar in a vision saw all seven in hell, each 
with a group of followers, characteristic in appearance, called 
forth by " Mahoun " to make a dance, the fiends prodding them 
on. Of exceptional interest is the account of Spenser, who 
pictures them very graphically in a procession which the Red 
Cross Knight witnesses at the castle of Lucifera. He sees her 
in a coach drawn by " six unequal beasts," on which rode her 
" sage counsellors " : first " sluggish Idleness, the nurse of sin," 
in a garb like a monk's, riding upon an ass ; next " loathsome 
Gluttony" on a filthy swine; then "lustful Lechery" upon 
a bearded goat ; afterwards " greedy Avarice " on a camel ; 
"malicious Envy" on a ravenous wolf; "fierce revenging 
Wrath " upon a lion ; last of all, Satan on the waggon-beam, 
urging Sloth with a smarting whip when he stands still in the 
mire. Shakspere, moreover, had them in mind, especially Pride 
the chief, when in Henry VIII. he charged Cromwell to "fling 
away ambition," for " by that sin fell the angels." Other places 
where the Seven Deadly Sins are treated in English works, 
or where they appear depicted in tapestries, carvings, and 
stained-glass windows, it is unnecessary to enumerate. Examples 
enough have been cited to indicate in this regard a striking 
continuity of literary tradition. 



2E 



CHAPTER IX 



DIDACTIC WORKS 



The literature of the Middle Ages being for the most part 
produced by clerks, or by persons under their direct influence, 
the stamp of didacticism is everywhere manifest. Particularly is 
this true of the early writings extant in Middle English : they 
were nearly all prepared with the modest purpose of conveying 
moralised instruction to the ignorant laity. They are seldom 
original, seldom artistic. Most are but crude translations or 
adaptations of Latin or French works. 



Precept and Proverb Poems 

In certain poems, however, of an ethical nature, the temper 
of the Teutonic race appears plainly, as an echo of the inde- 
pendent, heathen past. The Norsemen possess a precept poem 
of striking merit called the Hdvamdl, or "Sayings of the High 
One," in which the god Odin is represented as giving to men 
practical counsel to guide them in daily conduct. Similar saws, 
and perhaps similar poems embodying them (in addition to 
gnomic verses), were current among the Anglo-Saxons. In the 
twelfth century some of this material was united in an interesting 
poem and put into the mouth of King Alfred, whose figure, long 
revered by native Englishmen, had gradually attained to almost 
mythic proportions. Alfred is here declared to have been the 
418 



DIDACTIC WORKS 419 



wisest man that had ever lived in England ; elsewhere was 
ascribed to him the composition of fables of ancient origin. 

On the metre and setting of the so-called Proverbs (better the 
Precepts) of King Alfred, Mr. Stopford Brooke has written in the 
preceding volume of this series. Here then we need only indicate 
its substance briefly. 

First in the poem are emphasised the duties of all towards God ; then 
those of king, prince, and knight severally, to those under them in authority ; 
after which words of warning are delivered against the uselessness of wit 
without wisdom, the deceitfulness of riches, and the vanity of life. The 
following sections deal more directly with rules of personal behaviour. Men 
are counselled when they have sorrow not to confide in others, but to tell it 
to their saddle-bows and ride forth singing. Children are not to be trained 
without a rod, for "better is a child unborn than unbeaten"; yet "a wise 
child is his father's bliss." Care should be taken lest a man drink until he 
neglects his speech and wake to repent his words. Wives chosen for their 
beauty or wealth turn out evil. " Many a fair-seeming apple is bitter within." 
A husband must anxiously control his tongue, or his spouse will repeat his 
words when he least desires it. "Woman is word wod (mad), and hath a 
tongue too swift; though she herself well would, she may it not wield." 
(We are reminded of the Wife of Bath, who would not spare her husband at 
their own board, "though the Pope had sitten him beside.") A man must 
be master in his own house, and keep his wife busy. If a woman is idle and 
proud, she gets into mischief. She weeps for anger oftener than for good, 
and refrains from speech to work her will. Cold is usually a woman's 
counsel. But a good woman is a good guide. Friends should be treated 
with discretion. One must not tell all one's thoughts, for friends often 
become enemies. Many simulate friendship to gain advantage. A true 
friend, however, must be trusted and served gladly. The wise man will 
keep on good terms with all, but to do this requires self-restraint. A wise 
man does not say all his will, whereas "a fool's bolt is soon shot." Age 
comes inevitably with its cares. Let a man not commit his wealth to his 
family while he lives. The dead are soon forgotten. He is wise who doth 
well while he is in this world. In the end he receives his reward. 

A goodly number of genuine proverbs are extant in a collec- 
tion of about the year 1200, and others here and there separately 
{e.g. in The Owl and the Nightingale, and in Gerald's Descrip- 
tion of Wales). Most interesting are those attached to precept 



420 DIDACTIC WORKS 



verse or elaborated in stanzas in the Proverbs of He?idyng. 
Though this collection was put into its present shape about a 
century after the Precepts of King Alfred, some at least of the 
material that it contains is equally old. But here the whole is 
remodelled in imitation of the French collections of the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, such as Li Proverbe au Vilain and that 
attributed to Le Conte de Bretaigne. Instead of the short 
alliterative lines tending to rhyme, of the transition period, we 
find stanzas of six lines each, rhyming aabccb, followed by a 
proverb and the words " Quoth Hendyng." The manuscripts 
show considerable variation in contents ; but taken together they 
make a poem of fifty- one strophes. The last edition of the 
French proverbs of "le vilain" (the rustic) contains 280 such; 
yet many more exist. These proverbs, English and French alike, 
are the product of middle-class sentiment, the thought of plain 
people crystallised in pregnant phrase, but they represented 
also no doubt the feelings of the aristocracy, based as they are 
on universal experience. A couple of stanzas from the English 
poem will clearly show its nature : 

Such man have I lent my cloth, 
That hath made me full wroth, 

Ere it came again. 
But he that me once serveth so, 
And he eft bid mo (more) 

He shall find me unfain. 
" Seldom comes loan laughing home," 
Quoth Hendyng. 

Strong (hard) is aught for to get 

And wick (bad) when one it shall let (leave) ; 

Wise man, take thou yeme (heed), 
All too dear is bought that ware, 
That ne may without care 

Man's heart queme (please). 
" Dear is bought the honey that is licked off the thorn," 
Quoth Hendyng. 

Here are some of the familiar proverbs included : " Tell thou 



DIDACTIC WORKS 421 



never thy foe that thy foot acheth " ; " Many a man for land 
wiveth for shond (shame) " ; " He is free of horse that never had 
one"; "A burnt child dreads the fire"; "When the bale is 
highest then is the boot nighest " ; " When the cup is fullest then 
bear it fairest"; "The bet(ter) thee be, the bet(ter) thee besee." 

Who " Hendyng " was is a matter of conjecture. In the 
opening stanza of the poem the author calls him " Marcolf's son," 
and thus connected him with the opponent of Solomon in a word- 
combat of ancient and world-wide fame. One old French version 
of this dispute begins each stanza with " Ce dit Salemons," 
or " Marcoul li respont." In the Anglo-Saxon poem on the theme 
Saturn replaces Marcolf ; but the latter is mentioned in Widsip 
as ruler of a race called the Hundings, who were evidently 
thought of as a people in the far East. To a Hunding, then, 
a sort of eponymous hero of the race to which Marcolf belonged, 
and therefore readily called his son, might very well have been 
attributed a body of proverbial lore of the sort before us. If 
so, Hunding was transformed to Hendyng under the influence 
of the adjective hende (courteous), as a sort of translation of the 
French " le courtois," who figures as the opponent of " le vilain " 
in some collections — for example, Le Respit del Curteis et del 
Vilain. 

This is pure hypothesis, but it appears to be the best explana- 
tion of a peculiar problem. At all events, it can hardly be, as 
some assert, that these proverbs were in the beginning attributed 
to Alfred, and only ascribed to the mysterious Hendyng when the 
King of Wessex was forgotten. Nor has the difference of name 
any political significance : the poem is valuable chiefly as a revela- 
tion of the people's temper and training. 

To the Precepts of Alfred is appended in the manuscript 
another similar poem in which an old man is pictured as sitting 
beside a dear son telling to him " sooth thews," giving him good 
guidance for life. This too is put into Alfred's mouth. It is 
obviously parallel to the Anglo-Saxon poem in the Exeter Codex 
known as The Father's Teaching, and likewise contains advice 



422 DIDACTIC WORKS 



about prudence in speech, watchfulness in drinking, care in 
choosing friends, and wisdom in treating heirs. Several later 
Middle English poems were conceived in a like spirit. Hozv the 

Wise Man taught his Son emphasises particularly the attitude that 
the Son should take towards his wife. He is advised to chastise 
her "with love's awe," the rod being "fair words"; if he rebuke 
her extremely and arouse her wrath, she is liable to "raise a 
smoky roof." How the Good Wife taught her Daughter, a better 
poem, is more in the " Hendyng " style : a proverb or precept 
ends each stanza (e.g. " many hands make light work," or 

" bounden is he that gift taketh "), last of all being appended 
the recurring words " My lief (dear) child." In another form, 
the "good wife " is represented as giving her counsel on the eve 
of her departure for the Holy Land. Here the refrain is more 
conspicuous. Witness the first stanza : 

The good wife would a pilgrimage unto the Holy Land. 

She said, My dear daughter, thou must understand 

For to govern this house and save thyself from shond (shame). 

For to do as I thee teach, I charge thee thou fond (try). 

With an O and an I, said it is full yore, 

That loth child lore behooveth, 

And lief child much more. 

The material of these precept poems appears to be a com- 
posite of three elements hard to separate : heathen Germanic 
experience, pagan Roman wisdom, and mediaeval Christian senti- 
ment. In the A B C of Aristotle we have a short alliterative 
poem combining all three, the chief teaching still being to avoid 
excess : " a measurable mean way is best for us all." According 
to the disposition of the writers of one or the other of the two 
chief versions, the advice is worldly and shrewd, or religious and 
aesthetic. 

Exceptionally popular in all periods of the Middle Ages were 
the Distichs of Cato (originally composed in the fourth or fifth 
century), of which numerous versions remain. This model 
treatise, revealing " How the wise man taught his son that was 



DIDACTIC WORKS 423 



of tender age," was an authorised text-book for "grammar" 
instruction in schools. In a fourteenth -century version the 
English text accompanies the Latin and French, the latter being 
the work of a monk Everard (c. 1250). One stanza will serve as 
an example : 

Instrue preceptis animam, ne discere cesses ; 

Nam sine doctrina uita est quasi mortis imago. 

Ne cesses en toun corage 
De aprendre ke seiez sage 
Mout amyablement ; 
Kar si cum morte ymage 
Est homme en checun age 
Ky nul ben aprent. 

Further thy will with wisdom, 
And cease not for to lere, 
Man's life is like a dead image 
Witless if it were. 

We have another English version in rhyme -royal. A trans- 
lation by Benedict Burgh, Lydgate's disciple, was printed by 
Caxton. 

An interesting collection of precepts from various sources is 
the book of Proverbs of Divers Prophets and of Poets and of other 
Saints, the usual form being first a Latin quotation, then four 
lines of French and four of English. The work begins with a 
paraphrase of David's words, " the fear of the Lord is the begin- 
ning of wisdom " ; then in the course of the poem are emphasised 
wise sayings of Solomon, Seneca, Sidrac, and other worthies of 
antiquity. Similar in conception is the Dides and Sayings of 
the Philosophers, compiled in Latin c. 1350, put into French in 
1410, and translated thence twice into English — in 1450 by Stephen 
Scrope, " for the contemplation and solace " of Sir John Fastolf, 
and in 1474-77 by Antoine Wydeville, Earl Rivers. The latter 
version was printed — the first book printed in England — in 1477, 
and was so successful as to demand two reprints in a very short 
time. 



424 DIDACTIC WORKS 



Definitely religious, or with a religious trend, are such English 
poems as The Saw of St Bede Priest, Ratis Raving, and The Folly 
of Fools and Thews, of Wise Men. The Sayings of St Bernard 
deals warningly with man's three foes : the world, the flesh, and 
the devil; while St. Bernard's tract, De Cura Rei Familiaris, 
which was paraphrased in Scottish verse and addressed to a knight 
named Raymund, gives practical advice on domestic economy. 

Dialogues and Debates 

From ancient times the dialogue has been a favourite method 
of conveying scholastic instruction on subjects of science, phil- 
osophy, ethics, theology, and myth. Among the Latin Christians 
it served regularly for sci'utinia and elucidaria, catechisms and 
sums of theology. Among the Germanic heathen it was a natural 
form for riddles and flytings. Old Norse possesses an Eluci- 
darius, but much more interesting are the various dialogues of 
the Fdda, by means of which is effectively presented much 
information on primitive cosmogonic and mythical conceptions, 
or (as in the dispute of Odin and Thor at a ford) diverse attitudes 
towards life. 

Not far from noo, it would seem, was made in English a 
partial translation of the Elucidarius composed but a short while 
before by Honore d'Autun, — a work of extraordinary vogue, which 
was popular enough as late as 1508 to be then printed by Wynkyn 
de Worde in chap-book form, — and theological dialogues early 
found favour ; but in Middle English are also to be found poems 
of a more artistic nature, secular rather than religious, which go 
by the name of "debates." These are usually short, cleverly 
constructed works, in which representative combatants argue the 
merits of opposing points of view. Though in them the method 
of dialogue is essential, and though there is no consistency in the 
use of terms, we may for* convenience apply the name dialogue 
to such works as are definitely dogmatic in tone, and debate to 
those more subtle balancings of contrasted attitude in which 



DIDACTIC WORKS 425 



usually no final conclusion is reached. Both are to some extent 
modelled on Latin clerical poems, but the secular debates were 
more particularly fashioned after the style of the Provencal 
partimen and its early imitations in French. 

Of Middle English dialogues of religious import the earliest 
extant {c. 1200) is a thoughtful (Kentish) treatise on Vices and 
Virtues, in which a Soul makes confession of its sins, and Reason 
in reply describes the Virtues. In Ypotis, written in its present 
form over a century later, which Chaucer calls a romance, we 
have a colloquy represented as taking place between a child of 
that name (who turns out to be Christ in disguise) and the 
Emperor Adrian of Rome, in which a great deal of cosmogonic 
and theological instruction is compendiously conveyed. The 
writer boldly states that St. John the Evangelist first wrote in 
Latin this " tale of Holy Writ." Ypotis is a late form of the 
name of Epictetus the philosopher, the original altercation of 
Epictetus and Hadrian being a heathen work on natural science. 
Similarly, in a dialogue between the Virgin and Christ on the 
Cross, and in one between the Virgin and St. Bernard, the story 
of the Passion is narrated. A Disputation between Mary and 
the Cross, the "fantasy" of a clerk, in forty well -constructed 
alliterative stanzas of the style of The Pearl, presents apocryphal 
information on the same theme. The Disputation between Child 
Jesus and Masters of the Law of Jews is a realistic, if non-Biblical 
account of Christ teaching the elders. That between A Good 
Man and the Devil is in sum a defence of the attitude of the 
Church towards the Seven Deadly Sins against the subtile argu- 
ments of the devil, who, disguised as a handsome youth, joins 
Good Man on his way home from divine service and seeks to 
pervert him, but who in the end must acknowledge his real self 
and return a. "sorry ghost" to hell. The Dispute between a 
Christian and a Jew, rather a legend than a debate, relates how 
two learned divines, the one an Englishman, Sir Walter of 
Berwick, the other a Jew, meet at Paris and make a bet of three 
tuns of wine as to the possibility of witnessing in actuality Christ 



426 DIDACTIC WORKS 



on the Cross surrounded as He was at the crucifixion. The Jew- 
promises to bring this about, and conducts the Englishman 
through a hill to an Otherworld paradise, where the knights of 
the Round Table are at games in scenes of rich splendour. But 
the Christian, being on his guard against deception, refuses to 
eat or drink, and keeps concealed a mass-wafer that he has been 
thoughtful enough to bring. When an illusion of the Cross 
appears, he produces his wafer and the whole place is thereby 
destroyed. The Jew is converted. 

But by far the most impressive of all the religious dialogues 
is the oldest, the so-called Debate of the Body and the Soul, which 
stands apart from the rest because of its continuous and sur- 
passing popularity, and because in its best form it presents a 
peculiarly fine example of religious instruction in a vision-setting 
with balanced dialogue between the opposing sides of man's 
nature personified. This debate, originally in Latin, is preserved 
in French and several other languages, as well as in various early 
and late forms of Middle English verse. The most poetical is 
that found in a manuscript of c. 1300 containing some sixty 
stanzas. The opening lines have been thus modernised : 

As I lay in a winter's night, 

In heavy drowse, before the day, 
Forsooth I saw a right strange sight, 

A body on a bier that lay, 
Which once had been a haughty knight, 

And God cared little to obey ; 
Lost he had his life's light, 

The soul was out, and should away. 

When the soul was forced to go, 

It turned, and by the bier it stood, 
Surveyed the body it came fro, 

So sadly, with affrighted mood. 
It said, "Ah wellaway and wo ! 

Wo worth thy flesh and foule blood ! 
Wretched body, why liest thou so, 

That whilom wast so wild and wood ? " 



DIDACTIC WORKS 427 



The soul " with tristful cheer " contrasts the former and the present 
condition of the knight, and the body answers its "mournful moan," blaming 
the soul as the cause of its sorry state. Much mutual reproach follows, until 
at last a thousand fierce devils appear and carry the soul to hell, torturing 
it in every wise. The victim is equipped with hell-attire as for a tourna- 
ment (bearing the devil's burning coat of mail, riding a flaming charger), and 
is made to ride a course while the demons assault him with blazing brands. 
Then he is forced to play the part of fox (in his life he had so loved the 
chase), and is pursued by a pack of keen hell-hounds. Forced at last to blow 
his horn, he assembles a horde of devils, who hurry him to the abyss of 
everlasting torment, where he is cast down and locked in. The dreamer is 
overwhelmed with terror and rejoices at his own salvation from such a fate. 
He entreats the sinful to repent. " Never sin was done so great that Christ's 
mercy is not well more." 

We recall the lines in Comus : 

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres, 
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave 
As loth to leave the body that it loved 
And linked itself by carnal sensuality 
To a degenerate and degraded state. 

On the other hand, the most interesting and significant of the 
debates of the Provencal type on secular themes is that already 
mentioned, The Owl and the Nightingale^ an anonymous poem, 
composed about 1220, containing nearly 1800 lines of spirited 
verse. The writer was a cultivated man, skilled in argument, 
and he presented the contrasting- views of his characters with 
uncommon skill. The birds agree to submit their dispute to 
Master Nicholas of Guildford, who dwelt at Portsham in Dorset, 
a man extolled by both as wise and virtuous, whose merits 
were greater than one would infer from the recognition he had 
received at the hands of the Church party. It is probable that 
the author was one of his friends, who took this means to exalt 
his repute. 

He represents himself as being out of doors one summer's day and as over- 
hearing an owl and a nightingale engaged in strife, each saying the worst things 



428 DIDACTIC WORKS chap. 

possible of the other and the best of herself. The nightingale is sitting on a 
fair blossoming branch of the hedge when she catches sight of the owl on an 
old ivy-grown stock near by, and stops to express her contempt for the sullen 
bird. The owl waits until eventide to reply, but then talks back boldly. 
And, the quarrel once under way, each pours upon the other bitter comments 
concerning her appearance, manner of life, style and purpose of singing. The 
owl appears to get rather the better of the argument, and the nightingale has to 
use subtle shifts to hold her own. At last she tries to win by the clamour of 
a company of bird supporters whom she summons to her aid, and thereby 
exasperates the owl to vehemence. A wren interferes to stop the strife and 
suggests that the case be then submitted to Master Nicholas. This all agree 
should be done ; but of the decision the author was not informed. 

Chaucer speaks of the Owl "that of death the bode bringeth," 
and of the Nightingale "that clepeth forth the freshe leves newe." 
But more helpful in interpreting the debate are the words of the 
poet's contemporary, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Topography of 
Ireland, who, when contrasting the natures of hawks and falcons, 
thus moralises : 

May we not compare to the first class of birds those who, indulging in 
sumptuous banquets, equipages, and clothing, and the various other allure- 
ments of the flesh, are so won by their charms that they study only earthly 
things and give themselves up to them ; and as they do not soar en high to 
gain the prize by resolute and persevering efforts, their conversation is on 
earth and not in heaven. Those, again, may be compared to the other class 
of birds, who, rejecting altogether a delicate diet and all the other delights 
of the flesh, choose rather, by divine inspiration, to suffer hardships and 
privations. And, since all virtue soars high, struggling upwards with all 
their efforts, their aim and object is that recompense and reward for their 
labours above which the violent take by force. 

The contrast between the attitudes of the Owl and the Nightin- 
gale is similar. The former opposes permanent to transient 
pleasures, unselfish to lustful inclination, the earnest life to one 
of indulgent ease, religious duty to worldly joy. 

The poem is probably more than an ordinary display of clever 
dialectics, for which the mediaeval university trained its students 
surpassingly. It seems to contain a modern, a personal note, 
revealing an inner struggle of the author with his conflicting 



DIDACTIC WORKS 429 



tendencies aesthetic and moral, which has ended in a just appre- 
ciation of the value of each, a compromise without prejudice, 
yielding a character puritan in essence but humanised by culti- 
vation. There were no doubt many other young Englishmen in 
the early thirteenth century to whom the brilliancy of the French- 
mannered court appealed strongly, but who were brought to recog- 
nise that the sturdiness of their English nature was the soundest 
basis of personal and patriotic development ; many who took sides 
with the national Parliament against the cosmopolitan Church; who 
felt it wise to promote the native to the neglect of the foreign 
speech. If we may see in the author's approving words of Master 
Nicholas an indication of his own experience, we may believe him 
to have been a man whose native seriousness had reasserted itself 
after a period of light-hearted indifference. Noteworthy is his 
frequent quotation of English proverbs. 

The Owl and the Nightingale reminds us of Clanvowe's poem 
in Chaucerian style on The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, but more 
strikingly perhaps of the debate of The Merle and the Nightingale 
by Dunbar, where the gist of the two birds' contention appears 
in the refrain lines : " A lusty life in Love's service been ! " and 
"All love is lost but upon God alone!" It is strange, however, 
to see Dunbar putting the latter sentiment into the mouth of the 
Nightingale, whom the earlier writer, recalling the story told in 
Marie's Lai de Laustic (which was accessible to him also in 
Neckham's De Naturis Reruni), properly represented as a seductive 
bird. Dunbar, it may be said, in his Dance of the Sins, describes 
a scene not unlike that in The Soul and the Body. His terma- 
gants in hell, we read, "full loud in Erse began to clatter." 
The Owl long before had betrayed the same prejudice when she 
said of the frivolous Nightingale : " Thou chatterest as doth an 
Irish priest." 

In another " contention " (taken from the French in the 
time of Edward I.) the Nightingale again appears, this time 
opposing a Thrush's views of women. Thus pleasantly the poem 
begins : 



430 DIDACTIC WORKS 



Summer is comen with love to town, 
With blossom and with birdes roun, 

The nut of hazel springeth. 
The dewe's darkeneth in the dale. 
For longing of the nightingale, 

The fowle's merry singeth. 

The poet hears the Thrush accuse women of various wrongs (fickleness, false- 
hood, uncleanness), citing such witnesses as Alexander, Adam, Sir Gawain, 
also examples of deceived men like Constantine and Samson — whereupon the 
Nightingale defends them stoutly, and finally puts the Thrush to shame by 
mention of the Virgin. The Thrush owns her folly in saying ill of maidens and 
wives, when there exists so preeminent an example of divine womanhood, 
and agrees to leave the woodshaw where the two birds have been together. 

Other debates are the admirable alliterative poems of Winner 
and Waster and Death and Life (the former of which has been 
mentioned among the Visions) and The Carpenter's Tools, 
which unite in disapproval of their master's intemperance — a 
spirited little poem of the fifteenth century. The writing of 
debates continued in full vigour to Elizabethan times, when a 
large number of dialogues, contentions, controversies, compari- 
sons, and the like appeared. Debates served also to develop 
one sort of drama, illustrated by Heywood's Wit and Folly and 
Pardoner and Friar. 

In the form of dialogue are Chaucer's allegorical Tale of 
Melibens (derived ultimately from a treatise of Albertano of 
Brescia) and that noble work familiar to every cultivated man 
in the Middle Ages, translated by King Alfred, Chaucer, and 
Queen Elizabeth, the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. 



Books of Instruction and Utility 

A very large number of books of instruction primarily for 
youths and children were written in English, especially in the 
fifteenth century (but also earlier and later), and usually in verse — 
books of courtesy, nurture, behaviour, urbanity, civility — etiquette- 
books for " babes " and dietaries presumably for adults — books 



DIDACTIC WORKS 431 



of manners and morals, to serve all sorts of persons of different 
ranks in different circumstances. These books are in truth just 
what Lydgate modestly said of his Stans Puer ad Mensam : 
"compendious of sentence " but " barren of eloquence." If one 
would get a clear idea of social usages in mediaeval times, no 
documents are more valuable ; but to the name of literature they 
have but slight claim. That some knowledge of them is helpful 
in understanding the training and milieu of characters in fiction 
as well as in real life, every reader of Chaucer is aware. 

The pattern of good manners among the Canterbury pilgrims 
was the Prioress (" in curteisye was set ful much her lest ") ; but 
the Squire likewise was a model of the best training afforded a 
noble youth. For such as he were prepared books of guidance to 
refinement and polish that contrast markedly with the poems of 
plain salutary counsel for humbler folk. We understand better, 
after reading both types, the reasons for the diverse predilection of 
the mediaeval high and low, the questions of their daily solicitude, 
the quality of their ideal standards. They reveal, on the one hand, 
the workaday lives, the dull duties, the practical vexations, the 
exterior roughness, the crude simplicity, of ordinary folk ; and on 
the other, the adventurous careers, the spectacular pomp, the 
luxurious ease, the elaborate sophistication, the "vain confabu- 
lations " of the courtly classes. 

The trouble with treating courtesy - books as indicative of 
actual conditions in England at any given time is that they 
are seldom native in origin : they seldom contain other than 
long-perpetuated advice. French books of manners and meals, 
of the ways of chivalry and domestic economy, abounded in the 
fourteenth century. Noteworthy are similar treatises produced in 
Italy from the time of Brunetto Latini, Bonvicino and Barberino 
in the thirteenth century or a little later, to that of the accom- 
plished Castiglione, who was knighted by Henry VIII. 

The Courtier is a book the reading of which would surely 
profit every man. The same may perhaps be said of certain 
works, much less attractive in style, which were particularly 



432 ■ DIDACTIC WORKS 



prepared as rules for princes, such as the Secretum Secretorum, 
attributed to Aristotle, and the De Regimine Principum of 
Egidio Colonna, versions of which are extant from the hands of 
Lydgate and Occleve, undertaken under princely patronage. 
Of the former we have three redactions in English prose, 
besides the metrical one of Lydgate and his follower Burgh. 
The book itself has an interesting history : first perhaps com- 
piled in Syriac in the eighth century, it appears to have been 
translated into Arabic for some Mohammedan ruler; it was put 
into Latin by Philip of Paris in the thirteenth century, and this 
redaction was reproduced in French. Sir William Forrest treated 
the same material in his Poesye of Princely Practise written for 
the benefit of Edward VI. 

Requiring but slight attention in such a book as this, yet 
necessary to note, are the numerous books of utility and pseudo- 
science dating from the fourteenth century on : books of cookery 
and carving; books of hunting and fowling, of heraldry and 
precedence; books of medicine and surgery, of "quintessence" 
and astrology ; books of geography and travel ; a translation of 
Palladius on husbandry — and the like. These are all interesting 
in their way, and some of them excessively quaint and curious ; 
but their purpose being almost wholly pedagogic, and their 
information not helpful to moderns, we leave them with this 
reference "in passing." From the time of Edward I. dates a 
Fragment on Popular Science, several hundred long lines in the 
metre of Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, which deserves more 
notice as the first attempt of the sort in English. It deals with 
supposed facts of astronomy, meteorology, physical geography, 
and physiology, the source not having been as yet determined. 
Chaucer, it will be remembered, wrote an Astrolabe for his " little 
son " Lewis (whoever he may have been). 

If one would get an idea of mediaeval science of every kind, 
the most compendious book of information. on the subject is the 
De Proprietatibus Rerum of Bartholomew, an English Franciscan 
who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, con- 



DIDACTIC WORKS 433 



temporary with Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas — the result, 
it would seem, of the University lectures that this learned pro- 
fessor of theology at Paris gave to numerous young friars, who 
perpetuated their master's ideas wherever they travelled and 
preached. This work, very popular in all parts of Europe for a 
long time, was turned into English in 1397 by John of Treves 
(Trevisa), the translator of Higden, who was chaplain of Sir 
Thomas, Lord of Berkeley. It was printed as early as 1495. 
Written thus in the age of Dante, translated in that of Chaucer, 
and printed before and in the time of Shakspere, it throws most 
valuable light on many antiquated notions entertained by all 
three of these great writers and by a host of others, their lesser 
contemporaries. Here we get a succinct account of mediaeval 
beliefs concerning astronomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, 
geography, and natural history, as well as all sorts of side-lights on 
conditions of early society. The author gathered his information 
from various authorities, such as Dionysius the Areopagite for 
heaven and the angels ; Aristotle for physics and natural history ; 
Pliny, Isidore of Seville, and Arab writers for astronomy; Con- 
stantinus Afer for medicine ; indeed, from every ancient or modern 
scientific treatise accessible. From bestiaries and lapidaries he 
drew extensively to explain the properties of gems and animals. 

Not because of their significance in any serious way, but 
because of their quaint curiosity, and incidentally to illustrate 
John's style, may be given his brief descriptions of a maid 
and a cat, which we are at liberty to regard as the result of 
personal observation. 

Of a Maid. Men behoove to take heed of maidens : for they be tender of 
complexion ; small, pliant, and fair of disposition of body ; shamefast, fearful, 
and merry. Touching outward disposition they be well nurtured, demure 
and soft of speech, and well ware of what they say, and delicate in their 
apparel. And for a woman is more meeker than a man, she weepeth sooner. 
And is more envious, and more laughing, and loving ; and the malice of the 
soul is more in a woman than in a man. And she is of feeble kind, and she 
maketh more lesings (untruths), and is more shamefast, and more slow in 
working and in moving than is a man. 

2 F 



434 DIDACTIC WORKS 



Of the Cat. He is a full lecherous beast in youth, swift, pliant, and 
merry, and leapeth and rusheth on everything that is before him ; and is led 
by a straw, and playeth therewith ; and is a right heavy beast in age and full 
sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait for mice ; and is aware where they be more by 
smell than by sight, and hunteth and rusheth on them in privy places ; and 
when he taketh a mouse, he playeth therewith, and eateth him after the 
play. In time of love is hard fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and 
rendeth the other grievously with biting and with claws. And he maketh 
a ruthful noise and ghastful, when one proffereth to fight with another ; and 
hardly is hurt when he is thrown down off an high place. And when he 
hath a fair skin, he is as it were proud thereof, and goeth fast about ; and 
when his skin is burnt, then he bideth at home, and is oft for his fair skin 
taken of the skinner, and slain and flayed. 

If our ideas of astronomy and chemistry and physics have 
changed, if our geographical knowledge has increased, if we are 
less disposed to seek symbols in history and natural phenomena, 
our observation of human and animal peculiarities is no keener 
than of yore. Nor is our patriotism greater. We read with 
pleasure the description of England, " beclipped all about by 
the sea," which ends as follows : 

England is a strong land and a sturdy, and the plenteousest corner of 
the world, so rich a land that scarcely it needeth help of any land, and every 
other land needeth help of England. England is full of mirth and of game, 
and man ofttimes able to mirth and game, free men of heart and with tongue, 
but the hand is more better and more free than the tongue. 



CHAPTER X 



SONGS AND LYRICS 



Lyrical poetry is of many kinds, and many productions that 
might be included under that heading have already been treated 
in previous chapters. There still remain, however, for con- 
sideration a goodly number of short poems which might be 
collected into a mediaeval "Golden Treasury of Songs and 
Lyrics," the basis of selection being, as in Palgrave's anthology, 
that " each poem shall turn on some single thought, feeling, or 
situation." 

Middle English lyrics may be roughly divided into three 
classes — ecclesiastical, popular, and courtly ; the production in 
general of monks, minstrels, and secular clerks. Yet no such 
division is permissible that does not recognise the inevitable 
transgression of limits ; for monks were clerks, and clerks were 
minstrels, and all sorts of clergy might be courtiers by merit for 
the nonce, or always by reason of birth. Moreover, ecclesiastics 
were often lewd while laymen were devout, and in both classes 
were poets who occupied themselves now with religious, now with 
secular themes. Furthermore, no style of lyrical writing was 
without influence on the others. Ecclesiastical poems favour 
the metres of the Latin hymns and chants ; popular songs are 
generally accompanied by refrains ; courtly lays are apt to exhibit 
the complications and conventions of Southern art But it is 
striking how the various methods encroach each on the other's 
special domain. The songs of churchmen often glow with the 
435 



436 SONGS AND LYRICS 



sensuousness of amorous troubadour verse, while those of 
courtiers as often betray the gleeman's love of nature and breathe 
the wholesome atmosphere of out-of-doors. Sometimes to a 
purely artificial product will be added a refrain from a minstrel 
lay. Occasionally in the same metre and in much the same 
words, thoughts of contrasting kind will be conveyed. In general, 
Middle English lyrics are characterised by a certain earnestness, 
warmth, and healthy vigour that give them a peculiar quality 
as opposed to similar Continental productions : what they lack in 
polish, they make up for in sincerity. All show in form a definite 
departure from Anglo-Saxon models. Many, to be sure, espe- 
cially those from the West Midland district, evince a tendency 
to alliteration ; but this is used as contributive ornament rather 
than as a method of structure. The lyrics of the period 
reached their finest form in artistically fashioned stanzas, pre- 
senting a wide variety in disposition of rhyme and length of 
line. These are the direct prototypes of much of modern 
English verse. 

Just as the winsome spirit of legend casts a glamour over the 
first composition of religious verse in Anglo-Saxon times, so it 
seems to hover over its new birth five hundred years later, when 
it revisits for a moment the scenes of past achievements. Again 
it came to Whitby, and again a man of lowly origin was 
inspired by a heavenly vision to sing in praise of God. The 
story of St. Godric, like that of Csedmon, deserves to be held in 
memory. 

Of him it is related that one day, when the sun was shining bright in the 
heavens, he lay bowed in earnest prayer before the altar of the Virgin, when 
all at once Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by Mary Magdalen, both 
very beautiful, with raiment shining white, in figure not large, resembling 
maidens of tender years. The petitioner was possessed by joy, "but dared not 
move. Soon, however, the two drew near with slow steps, and Our Lady 
spoke. "We will," said she, "protect thee to the end of the world, and 
seek to support thee in every need." Godric threw himself at her feet, and 
confided himself to her care. Thereupon the holy ones laid their hands on^ 
his head and stroked the hair from his temples, and the whole place was filled 



x SONGS AND LYRICS 437 

with sweet fragrance. Next the mother of mercy taught him a new song, 
which she sang before him as before a pupil, and he sang it after her and 
remembered it all the days of-his life. When he had the text and melody fast 
in his mind, she bade him, as often as pains plagued him, or temptation, or 
vexation threatened to overcome him, to sing the same, giving him this assur- 
ance : " From now on, if thou wilt call on me with this prayer, thou shalt have 
me at once as a propitious helper." Then, after making repeatedly over his 
head the sign of the cross, she and her companion vanished, leaving behind 
them the most wonderful fragrance. This tale, with tears flowing from his 
eyes, Godric more than once related to Reginald, monk of Durham, by 
whom it was recorded, together with the text of the song, as follows : 

Sainte Marie, . . . uirgine, 
Moder Jesu Cristes Nazarene, 
Onfo, scild, help thin Godric, 
Onfang, bring hehlic with thee in Godes ric. 

Sainte Marie, Cristes bur, 
Maidenes clenhad, moderes fiur, 
Dilie mine sinne, rixe in min mod, 
Bring me to winne with self God. 

" St. Mary, Virgin, mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, receive, shield, 
help thy Godric ; embrace and bring him aloft with thee into the kingdom 
of God. — St. Mary, Christ's abode, pearl (cleanness) of maidens, flower of 
mothers, remove my sin, rule in my mind, aid me to reach to God Himself." 

Reginald gives detailed information regarding the life of 
Godric, as apprentice, pilgrim, and hermit, from his birth in 
Norfolk to his death (in the year 11 70) at Durham. We possess 
parts of two other songs attributed to him, one composed on the 
occasion of the appearance to him of his dead sister, who in 
answer to his prayer was allowed to return to earth to assure him 
of her salvation, and another concerning a vision that he had of 
St. Nicholas, whom he saw with angels singing at the grave of 
Christ. He joined in their song, which St. Nicholas commended. 

If we examine Godric's song to the Virgin, we observe 
three noteworthy facts : that it is in stanzas, is embellished by 
rhyme, and is fired by mysticism — that, in fact, it anticipates in 
striking features the style and spirit of religious lyrics for the next 
three hundred years. Very similar are the ecstatic effusions 



438 SONGS AND LYRICS 



attributed to Richard Rolle, who in the fourteenth century 
followed St. Godric's manner of life. 

But it is not necessary to come down so late to find parallels 
to his prayer-poem. Only a little after Godric's time (c. 1210) 
was written A Good Orison of Our Lady, a "lay" skilfully 
wrought in some 170 long lines of fluent verse, "found," we are 
informed, by a monk, possibly first in Latin. 

It begins : " Christ's mild mother, St. Mary, light of my life, my dear lady 
— to thee I bow and bend my knee and all my heart's blood offer to thee. " 
The poet declares that he will sing love-songs to her incessantly, for she has 
released his soul from torment. She is bright and blissful above all women, 
their "blossom" before the throne of God. High is her throne above the 
cherubim ; the angels make joyful music in her presence ; she dispenses the 
richest gifts to her friends, ennobles them in a land of indescribable mirth, 
from golden bowls pours out to them eternal life with angelic joys. Her 
company are all radiant in white ciclatouns and wear golden crowns — red as 
roses and white as lilies, gleeful in the presence of their Lord and His queen. 
She is the well-spring of life ; heaven is full of her bliss, the earth of her 
mercy. The poet is in servitude for her love ; for it he has forsaken all that 
was dear to him. He implores her, his " lief sweet lady," to have pity on him, 
to shield him from sorrow, and heal his wounds ; for in her is all his trust, 
after her dear Son. 

Many are the orisons and salutations to Our Lady, the Ave 
Marias short and long, separate and in sequences, original and 
translated, that were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries. An early example of the sort, simpler yet more 
dignified than most, is one beginning thus : 

Blessed be thou, Lady, full of Heaven's bliss, 
Sweet flower of Paradise, mother of mildeness, 
Pray Jesu thy Son that He me rede and wiss (guide) 
So my way for to go, that He me never miss. 

The metre, it may be observed, is the familiar long line with 
seven accents and a caesura after the fourth, found most accurately 
in the Ormulum, which by division into parts became what is 
known as the " Common Metre." With it should be compared 
that of another charming poem of the first half of the thirteenth 



SONGS AND LYRICS 439 



century, from the same West Midland district, where French 
rhymes in the second half-line blend with the English of the first. 

Maiden, mother mild, oiez eel oreysoun ; 
From shame thou me shield, e de ly malfeloun. 
For love of thy child, me menez de tresoun ; 
I was wod and wild, ore su en prisoun. 

Thou art fair and free, e pleinde doucour ; 
Of thee sprang the blee, ly souerein creatour ; 
Maiden, beseech I thee vostre seint secour, 
Meek and mild be with me, per la sue amour. 

Another, with English and Latin combined, in a modified 
stanza, is still more melodious : 

Of one that is so fair and bright, vehtt maris stella, 
Brighter than the day is light, parens et puella, 
I cry to thee, thou look on me. 
Lady, pray thy Son for me, tarn pia, 
That I may come to thee, Maria. 

All this world was forlorn, Eva peccatrice, 
Till our Lord was y-born, de te genetrice. 
With ave it went away. 

Thuster (dark) night and cometh the day salutis. 
The well springeth out of thee, virtutis. 

Lady, flower of alle thing, rosa sine spina, 
Thou bore Jesu, Heaven's king, gratia divitia, 
Of all thou bearest the prize. 
Lady, queen, of paradise, electa. 
Maiden mild, mother, es effecta. 

A stabat mater of uncommon tenderness is extant in six -line 
stanzas, rhyming aabecb. In stanzas of eight lines the "five 
joys " of the Virgin were sung. And various other short poems 
full of " love-longing " attest the sentiment of tender devotion that 
she inspired. At the same time were frequent mystical love- 
songs in praise of Christ "so mild and sweet." Most notable of 
these is the well-known Love Rune of the Franciscan Thomas of 



440 SONGS AND LYRICS 



Hales, composed at the instance of a young lady, in order that 
she might by it learn of the best lover to take. 

The author points out that worldly affection is false and fickle, that famous 
knights have passed away like the wind's blast, fallen like meadow-grass. 

None is so rich, none is so free, 

That he shall not hence soon away, 

Never may it his warrant be, 

Gold nor silver, estate, array, 

No matter how swift, he may not flee. 

Nor defend his life any day. 

Thus is this world as thou mayst see, 

Even as the shadow that glides away. 

He who loves this fleeting world is blind. Man fades as a leaf on a bough. 
His love is inconstant, untrue. 

Where is Paris, where Heleyne, 
That were so bright and fair of "blee, 
Tristram, Amadas, and Ydeyne, 
Ysolt, and such as she, 
Hector with his sharp meyne, 
And Caesar, rich of worldes fee ? 
They are glidden out of the reyne, 
As the shaft is from the clee (sling). 

It is as if they had never lived. All their heat is turned to cold. The 
only worthy lover is Christ. If she only knew His good ways, how fair and 
bright He is of hue, how glad of cheer and mild of mood, how lovesome 
and how true of trust, she would not hesitate to yield herself to Him. He is 
the richest in the whole world. Even King Henry bears no comparison to 
Him. He is eager for the maiden's love. He asks no dowry. On the 
contrary, He will array His beloved in incomparable attire, take her to a 
dwelling fairer than ever Solomon wrought, built on a sure foundation, wb-re 
all is bliss. She shall there play with angels in a sweet accord, and rejoice in 
Christ's sight. He has given her a treasure greater than silver and gold, 
which she must carefully guard — her virginity, a gem-stone most precious, the 
jewel of greatest price, "set in the gold of heaven," which shineth above all 
in heaven's bower. While she preserves it pure, she is sweeter than any 
spice. Christ is the lover for her to choose. 

The author begs her to learn his song by rote and teach it to other 



X SONGS AND LYRICS 441 

maidens. When she sits in longing, let her sing it with sweet voice, and do 
as it bids. He prays Almighty God to let her come to His bridal-chamber in 
heaven. 

" Jesu, Lover of my soul " is the keynote of many another 
devout song of the thirteenth century. Two, entitled Dulcis Jesu 
Memoria and Sweet Jesu, King of Bliss, in stanzas of four lines 
each with single rhyme, are fashioned on a Latin model. The 
former (containing forty-nine stanzas) is particularly impregnated 
with mysticism. More vague and rapturous is the emotion here 
expressed. The author's soul is "Jesus' spouse." He begs to 
be taught His love-song " with sweet tears ever among." Of the 
same mystical " love-tears with sweet mourning," which we learn 
that Christ demands, Rolle was once again to write with like 
extravagant ecstasy. 

More attractive to us are the several graceful songs in which 
we hear a truly subjective note, where a definite impression is 
evoked by a suggestive scene, the temper being rather that of the 
secular lyric Thus, for example, one poet begins : 

When I see blossoms spring, 

And here glad foules song, 
A sweet love-longing 

Enters my heart anon, 
A love forever new, 
That is so sweet and true, 

It gladdeth all my song. 
I wot all mid iwys 
My joy and eek my bliss 

To Him alone belong. 

He sees the Christ on the cross, and the sight moves him to 
easnest devotion. We find the same tone in a poem, " I sigh when 
I sing," in six ten-line stanzas marked by freshness and vigour. 
A charming Song on the Passion begins thus : 

Summer is come and winter gone, 

The days begin to grow long 
And the birdes every one 

Make joy with song. 



442 SONGS AND LYRICS 



Still strong care bindeth me 
Despite the joy that's found 

in land, 
All for a child 
That is so mild 

of hand. 

Thoughts on the transitoriness of worldly pleasure and con- 
templation of the hereafter are suitably prepared for by the 
following stanza which begins a fine reflective poem : 

Winter wakeneth all my care, 
Now the leaves have waxed bare ; 
Oft I sigh and sorrow sare 

When it cometh in my thought 
Of our worldly joy, how it goeth to nought. 

Perhaps the best of all, however, is another song by a West 
Midland poet which is extant in a Southern form 

Now shrinketh rose and lily flower, 
That whilom bore the sweet savour, 

In summer, that sweet tide ; 
There is no queen so strong in power, 
There is no lady so bright in bower 

That death shall not by glide. 
Whoso will lust of flesh forego 

And Heaven's bliss abide, 
On Jesus he his thought bestow, 

Christ with the pierced side. 

After this introduction, the author tells straightway of his feelings one 
morning when, leaving Peterborough in gay mood, he begins to think of his 
folly and prays the Lord to save him from ' ' the loathsome house wrought for 
the devil." He sees that he is to gain sweetness and soundness of spiritual 
nature by penance, which is the medicine of the Virgin, the best leech in 
the world. All sick should seek her and be brought to bliss. 

More plainly personal is the prayer to his "high lord," his 
"trusty king," of an old man in "the sere, the yellow leaf," who 
laments the change of his estate in the spirit of the Anglo- 
Saxon Wanderer: 



x SONGS AND LYRICS 443 

Once he was gay and proud, now weak and joyless, " little loved and less 
counted." His fast horses, his fine attire, his money are all gone. "When 
I see steeds stiff in stall and I "go halting in the hall," so he complains, "my 
heart begins to sink." He is loath where once he was lief. Those who once 
provided him with clothes, now turn away as if they were wroth. Such is 
evil and eld (old age) ! 

Evil and eld and other woe 

Follow me so fast, 
Meseems my heart shall break in two ; 

Sweet God, why shall it so ? 
How may it longer last ? 

While his life was evil, gluttony was his gleeman, pride his playmate, 
lechery his laundress (with her is gab and guile), covetousness bore his keys, 
envy and hatred were his comrades, liar his latimer, sloth and sleep his 
bediner (bedmaker). He repents his past, apostrophises "dreadful death," 
and prays for succour. In the end he recognises the best remedy for his misery 
and looks for the light of Heaven. 

Possibly by the same writer is a longer poem, entitled 
Maximion, likewise in strophes of varying length, and on the 
same general theme, the change of earthly conditions and the 
transitoriness of the joys of the world. Maximian's poems are 
mentioned in the Chaucerian Court of Love, and Skelton, con- 
necting him with Seneca and Boethius in the Garland of Laurel, 
speaks of his " mad ditties how doting age would jape with young 
folly." Certain lines in the Pardoner's Tale are imitated from 
the first Elegy of Maximian. 

From verse of this mournful character one turns with relief 
to the lightsome lyrics of the secular clerks, impregnated with 
the spirit both of the native folk-song and the courtly poetry of 
France. Of the folk-song proper we have no good example left 
unless it be the familiar one of the Cuckoo, wherein the advent of 
summer is robustly sung : 

Summer is y-comen in, loude sing cuckow ! 
Groweth seed and bloweth mead and springeth the woode now. 
Sing cuckow ! 



444 SONGS AND LYRICS 



Ewe bleateth after lamb, loweth after calfe cow, 
Bullock starteth, bucke verteth, merrye sing cuckow ! 

Cuckow, cuckow ! 
Well singest thou cuckow : ne swick (deceive) thou never now. 

This song is particularly interesting because the music to 
which it was sung is preserved in a codex (Harleian 978) written 
in 1226 by John of Fornsete, a monk of Reading, in Berkshire, 
the founder of the so-called " First English School " of music. 
It is described as " the earliest secular composition in parts which 
has hitherto been discovered — a Canon, or Round, for six voices, 
now known as the Reading Rota ; as melodious as an Italian 
Fa la of the best period, and, considering the date at which it 
was written, wonderfully free from contrapuntal defects." 

Refrains from folk-songs seem to have been adopted by 
trained writers to accompany their art-lyrics, which were probably 
composed with popular airs in mind. To a charming poem of 
the troubadour style, for example, is attached the following 
refrain : 

Blow, northern wind, 
. Send thou me my sweeting, 

Blow, northern wind, blow, blow, blow ! 

The author of this poem offers a very graceful, somewhat 
allegorical, description of his lady. He appeals to Love for 
counsel in tro lble, and is advised to plead with his sweetheart and 
implore her to relieve his pain. Thus he concludes : 

For her love I cark and care, 
For her love I droop and dare (decline), 
For her love my bliss is bare, 
And all I wax wan. 

For her love in sleep I slake, 
For her love all night I wake, 
For her love mourning I make, 
More than any man. 

A refrain,' more intimately connected with the text, occurs in 
the exquisite song of Alysoun : 



X SONGS AND LYRICS 445 

Between March and April, 

When spray beginneth to spring, 
The little fowl hath her will 
On her land to sing. 
I live in love-longing 
For seemliest of alle thing. 
She may me bliss bring. 
I am in her bandoun. 1 

A hendy hap I have yhent, 2 
I wot from Heaven it is me sent, 
From all women my love is lent, 3 * t \_ 
And light 4 on Alysoun. 

Very graceful likewise are the six-line stanzas of another short 
poem in which is expressed the anguish of a lover who dares not 
reveal his love. The poet thus concludes : 

I would I were a thrustlecock, 
A bountyng, 5 or a laverok, 6 

Sweet bride ! 
Between her kirtle and her smock 
I would me hide. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Gemma Ecclesiastica, tells an 
amusing anecdote of a priest of Worcester, who, having the 
refrain of a similar song ringing in his ears, chanted at the altar : 
" Sweet lemman, thine ore (mercy)," instead of Dominus vobiscutn ; 
and the bishop forbade that profane song ever to be sung again 
in the diocese. Gerald attests the fact that many other lyrics of 
the sort were popular in his day. 

In Johon we have a carefully-written song in five stanzas of 
eight epic long lines with the same rhyme, followed by a couplet 
with a different one. Here is also fulness of alliteration, such as 
was favoured in the West Midland district where the poem was 
written. The poet compares the qualities of his lady with various 
sorts of precious stones, flowers, birds, spices, and with certain 

1 Power. 2 A strange thing has happened to me. 

3 Turned. 4 Alighted. 6 Blackbird. 6 Lark. 



446 SONGS AND LYRICS 



notables of story. By the same author seems to have been 
written a clever song in tail -rhyme strophe beginning "With 
longing I am led," in which he tells of his amorous madness, and 
imagines that all heaven would be in his lady's embrace — a senti- 
ment expressed in another poem of similar nature and metre 
concerning The Beauty of Ribbesdale, who, to judge from the 
poet's phrases, was beyond compare in feature and form. One can 
but feel that one is immersed in "the chronicle of wasted time," 
reading descriptions of "the fairest wights," "and beauty making 
beautiful old rhyme in praise of ladies dead and valiant knights." 
In stanzas of four long lines with the same rhyme are pre- 
served two love -complaints, probably by one author, of the 
North-East Midland. In one the lover apostrophises his lady 
thus : 

When the nightingale singeth, the woods waxen green, 

Leaf and grass and blossom springeth, in Averil, I ween, 

And love is to my hearte gone, with a spear so keen, 

Night and day my blood it drinketh, my heart doth to teen (grieve). 

I have loved all this year, that I may love no more, 
I have sighed many a sigh, lemman, for thine ore (grace), 
To me is love no nearer, and that me rueth sore, 
Sweet lemman, think of me, I have loved thee yore. 

The other complaint is characterised by being in dialogue, 
after the following induction : 

My death I love, my life I hate, for a lady sheen, 

She is bright as day's light, that is in me well seen, 

All I fall as doth the. leaf in summer when it is green, 

If my thought helpeth me nought, to whom shall I me mene. 

Sorrows and sighs and dreary mood bindeth me so fast, 
That I ween to walke wod, if it still longer last ; 
My sorrow, my care, all with a word she might away cast ; 
What helpeth thee, my sweet lemman, my life thus for to waste. 

The dialogue begins with the lady's reproachful warning : 



SONGS AND LYRICS 447 



" Be off, thou clerk, thou art a fool, with thee I will not chide. Never 
wilt thou see the day when I will love thee. If thou art taken here, shame 
will betide thee." In return, the clerk pleads despairingly : it will be great 
shame to her if he dies for love of her. Again she reproves him for a fool 
to be where he is, since he is watched by her father and kin, and if they two 
are discovered together she shall be imprisoned and he slain : so he may win 
his death. 

Sweet lady, thou wend thy mood, pity thou wilt me show ; 
Now I am as sorry a man as blithe a while ago ; 
Fifty times we kissed each other once at a window. 
Fair behest makes many a man banish his sorrow. 

Waylaway ! "Why sayest thou so ? My grief thou makest new ; 
I loved a clerk all par amour, of love he was full true, 
He was not blithe never a day unless he could me view. 
I loved him better than my life, the sooth I tell to you. 

While I was a clerk in school, well much I knew of lore, 
I have suffered for thy love many woundes sore, 
Far from home, and eke from men, near no friendly door, 
Sweet lady, have pity on me. Alas ! I can no more ! 

Thou seemest well to be the clerk, thou speakest with a will, 
Thou shalt never for my love woundes suffer ill ; 
Father and mother and all my kin shall not hold me still, 
For thou art mine and I am thine thy wishes to fulfil. 

This poem partakes somewhat of the nature of the estrif, a 
form also employed in another poem, in which a maiden desirous 
of a husband without guile opposes the seductions of a transient 
lover whom she meets in a forest. 

From a clerk (probably of Lindsay) we have an ironical poem 
of repentance for his sins in mocking the ladies in his previous 
verse. He feigns to be wholly converted to their praise, and 
envies the renown among them of a Norman poet called Richard, 
whose " book of ladies' love," an imitation doubtless of the Pro- 
vencal leys (fajnor, had taught him his fault. 

These poems, however, are artificial in comparison with 
certain other songs of Midland origin, among which perhaps the 
best is one, full of the passion of spring, beginning as follows : 



448 SONGS AND LYRICS chap. 

Lent is come with love to town, 
With blossoms and with birdes roun, 

That all this biisse bringeth ; 
Daisies in these dales, 
Sweet notes of nightingales, 

Each fowl song singeth. 

Another by the same poet in the same twelve -line stanza 
regrets the falseness of women and warns them against deceivers. 
It too is a spring-song, praising the merry month of May, and 
betraying a genuine love of nature, quite different from that ex- 
pressed by most of the French poems of the sort which begin with 
a reference to the season, but simply, it would seem, as'a conven- 
tional means of getting under way. 

The majority of the lyrics so far mentioned are found in an 
important manuscript, Harleian 2253, and some of them only there. 
This manuscript was written, it appears, about 13 10, to satisfy the 
desire of a secular clerk connected with the priory of Leominster 
(Herefordshire) for an anthology of the current works in which he 
was especially interested. The collector was a person of varied 
taste, and all sorts of secular and religious poetry are represented 
in the 115 pieces (Latin, French, and English) that his book con- 
tains. Here we find such well-known works as the Geste of King 
Horn, the Proverbs of Hendyng, the Debate of the Body and the 
Soul, and the oldest of English miracle-plays, The Harrowing of 
Hell. But most interesting are the forty English songs which 
accompany them, eight of which are political, fourteen secular, and 
eighteen religious. We are most fortunate to have this body of 
mediseval lyrics thus preserved. Harleian MS. 2253 is as valuable 
for the study of lyrics as the Auchinleck MS., dating from about 
the same time, has been for the study of romance. Another 
manuscript, nearly related to the former, perhaps a little older, 
but not so exact,* is Digby 86 in the Bodleian, in which a second 
version of several of the religious songs is extant. Both of these 
manuscripts are in the Southern dialect, but the lyrics included 
were not all written in the South, or at the same time. 



SONGS AND LYRICS 449 



Similarly of various date and district are the many short 
religious poems (prayers, orisons, Hail -Marys, and the like) 
contained in the important Vernon MS., written late in the four- 
teenth century. Worthy of particular note in this manuscript is 
a collection of some thirty lyrics with refrains. These poems, 
however, are all in the temper of the age of Chaucer and the 
author of The Pearl, and their consideration may well be post- 
poned until we come to treat particularly of the writings of that 
time. 

Strictly, the popular ballad should be kept apart from this 
division; for it is not a product of conscious literary art — is 
not reflective or subjective or intricate. And the lyric proper 
offers in these respects a striking contrast : its best qualities 
are personal feeling, original thought, and perfection of form. 
Nevertheless, it is well to remark again that ballads were current 
. in great numbers in early England, and though few are preserved 
in old manuscripts, of their existence from the earliest times no 
one need doubt. In connection with the lays have already been 
mentioned many ballads embodying ancient material ; but in no 
instance have we a mediaeval version of these in similar form. Only 
one ballad is preserved in a manuscript earlier than the fifteenth 
century, namely Judas, which exists in thirteenth-century writing ; 
but another poem of the same sort, likewise based on apocryphal 
story, is the picturesque account of St. Stephen and Herod, which, 
though not extant in a record earlier than 1450, is considered as 
equally old ; and these were far from being isolated works. Lang- 
land's allusion to the rhymes of Robin Hood and Randolph, 
Earl of Chester, shows that such things were current before 1377. 

The Battle of Otterburn was fought on August 19, 1388, and 
the original version of the famous ballad concerning it must have 
been composed before Chaucer's death. It was a propos of 
Chevy Chace, which treats the same theme, that Addison wrote 
in the Spectator the following significant words : 

"When I travelled, I took particular delight in hearing the 
songs and fables that are come from father to son, and are most 

2G 



450 SONGS AND LYRICS 



in vogue among the common people of the countries through 
which I passed; for it is impossible that anything should be 
universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they 
are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some 
peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human 
nature is the same in all reasonable creatures ; and whatever falls 
in with it, will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities 
and conditions. . . . 

" I know nothing which more shows the essential and 
inherent perfection of simplicity of thought, above that which I 
call the Gothic manner in writing, than this ; the first pleases all 
kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to 
themselves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful authors 
and writers of epigram. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the 
language of their poems is understood, will please a reader of 
plain common-sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend 
an epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley : so, on the con- 
trary, an ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the 
common people, cannot fail to please all such readers as are 
not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation or 
ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings 
of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary reader, will 
appear beautiful to the most refined." 



CHAPTER XI 



CONCLUSION 



It will not require many words with which to conclude this 
survey of the literary history of England during the early Middle 
Ages. The reader has been made acquainted with practically 
all extant writings of the period which have any literary signi- 
ficance, and he is in a position to judge of the character and 
scope of the native production — so far as these can be determined 
from the documents now available as evidence. This last 
restrictive clause needs emphasis here again, for it cannot have 
escaped notice how often the statement has been made in the 
preceding pages, concerning all sorts of Middle English poems 
from Gawain and the Green Knight back to the Ormulum and 
Layamon's Brut, that they exist in unique manuscripts, or not at 
all in their original forms. And this fact should be constantly 
kept in mind, not only because it serves to make more tolerant 
our critical judgment of particular works, but also because it 
evidently throws light on the station of the persons to whom in 
general such works made appeal. " Books written in English," 
as Mr. Pollard has pointed out, " had to fight their way into a 
field already occupied, and it is clear that until the fourteenth 
century they failed to obtain any real popularity among well-to-do 
people. Of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae 
there are thirty-five manuscripts in the British Museum alone, and 
nearly a third of these date from the twelfth century. Of English 
works, on the other hand, written before 1360, perhaps the 
45i 



452 CONCLUSION 



majority survive only in a single copy, which in no single case 
bears any trace of the fine writing found in manuscripts for 
wealthy book-buyers. At a later date there is no lack of manu- 
scripts of Langland, the Wycliffite Bible, and Chaucer, some of 
them most beautifully written and decorated. The inference is 
obvious that in the earlier period English books appealed to a 
very small and by no means wealthy class of readers, and the 
development of our literature was retarded for lack of encourage- 
ment ; while of the books written some at least which we would 
gladly have inherited, perished utterly, partly, no doubt, because 
so few copies were made in the first instance." Plainly, to 
estimate aright the value of early Middle English writings, one 
must understand their authors' special mission, the province 
committed to their control, the extent of their delegated 
authority. One must recognise the fact that in general they 
wrote with intent simply to instruct the ignorant and humble, 
that they rarely aimed at originality in either substance or form, 
that their works were for the most part disregarded by the learned 
and the polite. 

These latter, the learned and the polite, though they wrote 
almost exclusively in what we now regard as foreign tongues, 
undoubtedly reflect best the enduring sentiments and spirit of the 
Middle Ages. We cannot, therefore, in justice, fail to consider 
their compositions carefully, if we would reconstruct the intel- 
lectual and artistic life of that period — a most important period, 
it should be remembered, when the foundations of modern 
English institutions were being laid, and when the literary 
tendencies of later times were taking root in established custom. 
Only when we shall drop from the records of our history these 
centuries of foreign control, when we shall refuse to employ the 
foreign words that then replenished and enriched our vocabulary, 
can we justifiably neglect the chief records of our literature during 
the same epoch. Far from ignoring the writings of men of the 
time because from a variety of causes Latin and French were the 
chosen instruments of English thought, we are in duty bound to 



CONCLUSION 453 



examine these with increasing pains in the effort to appreciate 
adequately the circumstances under which our composite race 
developed more varied and more refined modes of expression, 
together with a broader outlook, greater catholicity of temper, and 
a less parochial spirit in the domain of literary art. 

For the contrast is great between the types of literature 
favoured in England before and after the Conquest. To regard 
the writers of the fourteenth century and later as the lineal 
descendants of Anglo-Saxon precursors is fundamentally false. 
Chaucer did not exhibit the spirit of early times reawakened after 
a slumber of centuries, but was the product of conditions secured 
by Norman and Angevin rule. English literature did not go 
through a tunnel on a long underground journey, as some con- 
ceive, to emerge at the end of it, the same in essentials of style. 
The whole nation had been immensely modified by the events of 
the intervening period, and literature, its voice, had helped to 
effect the change. So blended is English blood that no attainable 
knowledge of ethnic facts will ever provide a safe basis for inclu- 
sive generalisation concerning the contribution of the diverse 
racial currents to the majestic river of English literature. But 
thorough study alone is required to ascertain the source of its 
tributaries, the historical causes that affected at different times its 
general appearance and course. The profound change in the 
literary predilection of Englishmen during the Middle Ages was 
due to the continuous influx of foreign ideas which our ancestors 
were powerless, even if anxious, to withstand. 

The Middle Ages have been sadly misrepresented. Ecstatic 
romanticists and ecclesiologists on the one hand, and scornful 
classicists and dissenters on the other, have variously deluded the 
public concerning the characteristics of the epoch. Both parties 
have based their judgments on incomplete or inaccurate know- 
ledge of the actual conditions of mediaeval life. The former have 
forgotten that "all that glitters is not gold"; the latter, that 
" people in glass houses should not throw stones." The Middle 
Ages were ages of reality as well as romance, of scepticism as well 



454 CONCLUSION 



as faith, of cynicism as well as idealistic devotion, of rollicking 
" sunburnt mirth " as well as gorgeous pomp and pageantry. They 
were ages, moreover, when keen acumen, subtle wit, liberal learn- 
ing, large knowledge of the world, untiring industry, and practical 
administrative power were possessed by a host of representative 
men. But after all is said which " mesure," sanity, and historical 
truth require, the fact remains that the Middle Ages allure the 
imaginative with a peculiar, abiding charm. They constitute the 
most genuinely poetic era that Europe has known, and in litera- 
ture as well as in architecture much was then achieved which 
surpasses in beauty anything else of its kind. It is true that the 
names of very few distinguished writers in the vernacular can be 
mentioned ; but no one will deny that many poetic themes which 
then originated may be counted "among the posterities" of 
literature; and it is not a question easily answered, whether that 
age is more valuable to the world, more significant in the history 
of civilisation, which discovers and displays the ore of the imagina- 
tion, or that which takes what is placed in its hands and perfects 
its form. At all events, the Middle Ages, when poetic material 
of the finest quality was laid bare, even though not altogether 
separated from common dross and dirt, are perhaps more in- 
structive to the historian of letters than any subsequent period, 
because they were a time of new planting and fresh burgeoning, of 
eager forecasting and glad experiment, of struggling endeavour to 
realise and embody the high visions of great nations in the vigour 
of their youth. 

And the words of a Lapland song 

Are haunting my memory still : 

A boy's will is the wind's will, 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 

One is constantly reminded in reading mediaeval English 
literature of the story of the Grail-hero Perceval. Though a child 
of noble lineage, he was reared as a rustic, apart from his fellows, 
in a woodland retreat. Inevitably rough, untutored, and ignorant 



CONCLUSION 



455 



of polite ways, he was nevertheless simple, pious, and sincere. 
By a happy accident he was led to the brilliant court of Arthur, 
and, though at first mocked at by the knights of the Round 
Table for his rudeness and lack of sophistication, he later amazed 
them all by his strength of muscle and force of will. For a time 
his superiors subjected him to discipline and trial, but he soon, 
found occasion to start out on an independent career which was 
marked by steady progress towards exalted achievement. After 
older and more accomplished warriors had abandoned the 
quest of the Grail, he kept pressing on, until finally he solved 
that holy mystery — and alone arrived at the summit of human 
success. 

Elizabethan literature may be likened to a mature man who, 
having inherited a vigorous constitution from robust English 
parents, was first liberally schooled in France, and then travelled 
here and there in Europe, lingering with most abandon in the 
South. By foreign study and cosmopolitan associations his 
knowledge increased, his standards became more justly fixed, and 
his individual powers grew more clearly marked. The years of 
this gradual enlightenment were most important in shaping his 
after career, because what he learned then was never forgotten : it 
stimulated him to lofty undertaking, while at the same time it 
restrained him from crudity and excess. The Middle Ages were 
the Wanderjahre of English verse. 

"The essential merit of mediaeval art," an architect has 
recently said, " lay in the freshness of its instinctive creativeness, 
in its uncalculating grasp of beauty." And this is true also of 
popular mediaeval poetry. Its call is "the call of incense- 
breathing morn." The age of chivalry produced men who wrote 
with freedom and spontaneity, with zest and zeal, with virility and 
emotion, and they have left us a precious heritage of idealistic 
example. Such writers, revealing the thought of such an age, 
will always remain significant to students of the growth of culture, 
if only as the inspiration of some of the most delightful parts of 
"that great poem which," as Shelley so finely conceived, "all 



456 CONCLUSION 



poets, like the cooperating thoughts of one great mind, have built 
up since the beginning of the world." 



We have here been occupied more with the matter than with 
the manner of poetry in the Middle Ages, because in the former 
we find its most real contribution to modern times. But the 
manner also it is important to regard closely before making a 
final estimate of the literary power of the period. In another 
volume the effect of early English verse on the externals of later 
styles will be more fully discussed. Then, too, more may be 
said of the quality of the English character as evinced in this 
its first product — of the wholesomeness of its affections, the 
freshness of its enthusiasms, the genuineness of its simplicity, the 
steadiness of its purpose, the vitality of its ideals. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX I 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



1084 



1087-noo 
1096-99 



Historical Events 

7 William the Conqueror. 
Hereward in Ely. 
Order of Carthusians founded. 
Doomsday Book. 

William Rufus. 
First Crusade. 
Godefroy de Bouillon. 
Magnus III. of Norway — 

Conqueror of Western Isles 

— died in Ireland. 

Henry I. 

Battle of Tinchebrai. 

Islendingabok (Ari j'orkelsson, 



latilda 



1 1123 
t"33 

"35-54 
1138 

1138-1254 



tii47 

1147-49 
1152 

"53 

t"5° 

1079-1142 

1091-1153 

1100-64 

1154-89 
"54-59 

1158-65 
1162 
1164 
1170 
1171 
1174 

1175-84 



Matilda marries Geoff, of 
Anjou, son of Fulk, King 
of Jerusalem, Plantagenet. 

Marbod, Bp. of Rennes. 

Hildebert of Tours. 

Stephen. 

Battle of the Standard. 

House of Hohenstaufen — Wars 

of the Guelphs and Ghibel- 

lines. 
Robert, Earl of Gloucester. 
Second Crusade. 
Henry marries Eleanor of 

Aquitaine. 
Treaty of Wallingford. 
Berengar. 
Abelard. 

Bernard of Clairvaux. 
Peter Lombard. 

Henry II. 

Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas 

Breakspeare). 
Welsh Wars. 

Becket made Archb. of Cant. 
Constitutions of Clarendon. 
Murder of Becket. 
Conquest of Ireland. 
Battle of Alnwick. 
Choir of Canterbury built. 



Latin 

1070-89 Lanfranc, Archb. of Cant. 
1093-1109 Anselm, Archb. of Cant. 
1 1 100 Thomas, Archb. of York. 
Jl. 1090 Osbern of Canterbury. 
f 1099 Osmund of Salisbury. 
1 1 124 Eadmer of Canterbury. 
Jl. 1 102 Saewulf. 

1 1107 Godfrey of Winchester. 
Jl. 1112 Reginald of Canterbury. 

1 1 19 Play of St. Catherine at Dun- 
stable. 
Jl. 1125 Hilarius. 

1 1 1 54 Lawrence of Durham. 
b. 1 1 16 Athelard of Bath. 
Jl. 1 143 Robert of Retines. 

1 1 1 18 Florence of Worcester. 
Jl. 1130 Simeon of Durham. 
1075-1143? Ordericus Vitalis. 
io84?-ii55 Henry of Huntingdon. 
io9o?-ii43 William of Malmesbury (De 
Gestis, c. 1 120). 
uoo?-54 Geoffrey of Monmouth (His- 

toria, c. 1136). 
./?. 1143 Alfred of Beverley. 
1109-66 Ailred of Rievaulx. 

1 1 147 Robert Pullen. 
Jl. 1 150 Vacarius. 

1 1161 Theobald, Archb. of Cant. 
C. 1120-80 John of Salisbury (Polycrati- 
cus, 1 156). 
1 1 167 Robert of Melun. 
1 1180 Adam du Petit Pont. 
Jl. 1170 John of Cornwall. 
Jl. 1 170 Thomas Brown. 
1 1 184 Gerard la Pucelle. ' 
Jl. 1160-1204 Peter of Blois. 

Bartholomew, Bp. of Exeter. 

Gilbert Foliot. 

William de Longchamp, Bp. of 

Ely. 
Baldwin, Archb. of Cant. 
Ranulph de Glanville. 
Richard FitzNeal. _ 
Giraldus Cambrensis. 
Walter Map. 
Carmina Rurana. 
Jl. 1 175 Odo of Sheriton. 



,"84 
tn8 7 
t"97 

tugo 
t"9° 
t"98 

[46-1220? 

[140-1210 



458 



, 



APPENDIX I 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



French 

Note. — The works mentioned below which 
are marked with an asterisk are neither 
Norman nor Anglo-French. All of them, 
however, will be seen to have some connec- 
tion with English productions. The dates 
assigned are in general as stated in the last 
edition of Gaston Paris's Litterature fran- 
faise au inoyen age. 

1066 *Chanson de Roland sung at 
Hastings. (Present form, 
c. 1080 — Oxford MS., c. 
1170 — Rhymed, c. 1165.) 
c. 1060 * Pelerinage de Charlemagne. 
c. 1075 Laws of William the Conqueror. 
before 1135 Prose Psalters of Oxford and 
Cambridge. 
*Saints' Lives — Sermons in Verse 
— Religious and Secular 
Poems — Tales (Arthurian — 
Renart — Epic). 
? Bleheris : Geste de Gaivayne. 
1 1 19 Philippe de Thaiin : Comput. 
C. 1 130 ,, ,, Bestiaire. 

c. 1 120 Songs of Luc de la Barre 
(against Henry I.). 
1121 Benoit : Vie de St. Brendan, 
before 1154 Elie of Winchester and Everard 
of Kirkham : Met. trans, of 
Cato. 
Wace : Short Poems. 
c. 1140 David: (Lost) Poem on Henry I. 
c. 1T48 Gaimar : Estoire des Engleis. 
c. 1155 Wace: Brut. 
1150-60 * Thebes, Eneas, Sept Sages. 
c. 1160 Benoit de Ste. More : Troie. 
Lancelot (Ulrich's source). 
Lost Breton Lays. 
Robert Biquet : Lai du Cor. 
C. 1150-89 *Crestien de Troyes : Trans, of 
Ovid ; Tristan ; Erec (c. 
1160) ; Cliges (1168); Lance- 
lot (c. 1170) ; /vain (c. 1172) ; 
Perceval (1175-89). 
c. 1170 Thomas: Tristan. 

Thomas : Aelof; Horn. 
IValdef; Havelok. 



English 

Note.— The dialect of the Middle English 
works mentioned below is indicated by the 
letters or words in parentheses. Thus : 
S.M. = South Midland ; S.W. = South-West ; 
N.M.S. = North Middle South; N.E.M.= 
North -East Midland; K. = Kentish. In 
many cases the statement of dialect or date 
is necessarily only tentative. 

1066-1154 Anglo - Saxon _ Chronicles — 
i. to 1121 ; ii. 1122-31 ; iii. 
1132-54 (Peterborough). 
Anglo-Saxon MSS. copied. 
Not Songs — Ballads — Lays — Pro- 

preserved verbs — Epic Tales by Leo- 
fric et al. 
Sagas: Horn; Aelof; Wal- 
theof ; Tristram ; Wade ; 
Havelok ; Beves ; Guy, etc. 
1100-50 West - Saxon Gospels tran- 
scribed. 
Old Kentish and other (e.g. 
Aelfric's) Homilies rewritten. 
Short Religious and Didactic 
Poems : Paternoster, Creed, 
Signs before Judgment, etc. 
(S.M.). 
Precepts of King Alfred 

(S.W.). 
Fables of Alfred (Marie's 
source). 
c. 1 150 Songs of St. Godric of Dur- 
ham (t 1 1 70). 
I 1 50- 1 200 — 

Distichs of Cato. 

Debate of Body and Soul 

(Wore). 
Legends of Katherine group 

(N.M.S.). 
Here-Prophecy. 
c. 1170 Poema Morale (Dorset). 
c. 1200 Ormulum (N.E.M.). 

Vices and Virtues (S.E.). 
c. 1205 Layamon's Brut, A (Wore). 
1200-50 Homilies — Holy Maidenhood ; 
Sours Ward; A Bispel ; 15 
Signs; n Pains; 5 Joys; 



459 



460 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Historical Events 



1 187 
1152-90 
1157-82 

t "77 

fl. 1169-75 

1119-74 

1135-1204 

1189-99 
1189-92 

1192-94 
1180-1223 
1185-1202 

fl. 1200 

ii 4 9?-98 

1114-1203? 



Wars of Henry with his sons. 
Saracens take Jerusalem. 
Frederick Barbarossa. 
Valdemar the Great of Den- 
mark. 
Adam of St. Victor. 
Bernard of Cluny. 
Peter Comestor. 
Rabbi ben Ezra. 
Maimonides. 

Richard Cceur de Lion. 
Third Crusade— Acre taken 

1191. 
Richard in Germany. 
Philip Augustus. 
Sverrir of Norway. 
Cnut VI. of Denmark. 
Saxo Grammaticus. 
Averroes. 
Alain de l'lsle. 



John. 

Pope Innocent III. 

Fourth Crusade. 

Loss of Normandy, Anjou, 

Maine, and Touraine. 
Albigensian Crusade. 
Interdict. 

Langton accepted as Archb. 
(t 1228). 
1215 Magna Charta. 
1170-1221 St. Dominic— order confirmed, 

1216. 
1182-1226 St. Francis — order founded, 
1210 ; confirmed, 1223. 



1199-1216 

1198-1216 

1202-04 

1204 

1207-44 

1208-13 

1213 



1216-72 
1216-19 
1220-24 
1212-50 
1228-29 
1226-70 
1236 

1244 
c. 1257 
1248-54 

1254 



'1255-02 
1258 



of 



1263 
1264 



fi266 

1270 

1264-74 



Henry III. 

Regency of Wm. Marshal. 

Friars come to England. 

Frederick II., Emperor. 

Fifth Crusade. 

St. Louis. 

Henry marries Eleanor 
Provence. 

Jerusalem finally lost. 

Sorbonne founded. 

Sixth Crusade. 

Henry renounces claim to Con- 
tinental possessions except 
Aquitaine and Gascony. 

Hanseatic League. _ 

First proclamation in English. 

The Mad Parliament. 

Balliol College founded. 

Wars with Barons. 

Mise of Amiens. 

Battle of Lewes. 

Parlt. of Simon de Montfort 

Battle of Evesham. 

Manfred. 

Seventh Crusade. 

Merton College founded. 



1272-1307 Edward I. 

1285-1314 Philip the Fair. 

1276-84 Conq. and annexation of Wales. 

1279 Statute of Mortmain. 



Latin 

fl. 1175 Gualterus Anglicus. 
fl. 1 1 80 Joseph of Exeter. 
fl. 1185 Henry of Saltrey. 
fl. 1190 Nigel Wireker. 

De Phillide et Flora, etc. 
Political Poems and Satires. 
Elegies, Eulogies, etc. 
Lives of Saints, Legends. 
Religious and Didactic Poems. 
Romulus. 
Jewish writers. 
1157-1217 Alexander Neckham. 

1 11Q3 Benedict of Peterborough. 
1 1 198 ? William of Newburgh. 

1 1201 ? Roger of Hoveden. 

1 1202 ? Ralph of Diceto. 
fl. 1 1 89 Richard of Devizes. 
fl. 1200 Jocelin of Brakeland. 
\c. 1235 Gervase of Tilbury. 
fl. 1200 Richard of the Temple. 
fl. 1207 Ralph of Coggeshall. 
fl. 1200 Geoffrey de Vinsauf. 
fl. 1230 John of Garland. 

t 1236 Roger of Wendover. 
fl. 1230-50 Bartholomaeus Anglicus. 
1 1240 St. Edmund Rich. 
1 1259 Matthew Paris. 
1 1245 Alexander of Hales. 
t 1253 Robert Grosseteste. 
fi257? Adam Marsh. 
1 1267 Henry of Bracton. 
Jl. 1250 Thomas of Eccleston. 
Gcsta Romanorum. 
Collection of Latin Tales. 
Books on Astronomy, etc. 
Books of Instruction and Edir 

fication. 
Political Poems. 
Bernard Gordon. 
f 1275 John of Hoveden. 
1214-94 Roger Bacon. 
1 1293 Michael Scott. 
c. 1265-1308 Duns Scotus. 
i25o?-i3i2 Rishanger. 
i258?-i328 Nicholas Trivet. 

fl. 1300 Walter of Hemingburgh. 
c. 1290-1349 Richard Rolle of Hampole. 
1281-1345 Richard of Bury. 
1275- 1345 Walter Burleigh. 

1 1349 William of Ockham. 
1290-1349 Thomas Bradwardine. 
1 1349 Robert Holcot. 
1 1360 Richard FitzRalph. 
t 1361 John of Gaddesden. 
fl. 1330 John of Trokelowe. 
fl. 1330 Henry Blaneford. 
1 1347 Adam Murimuth. 
t 1364 Ranulf Higden. 
fl. 1363 Henry Knighton. 
f 1384 ? John of Fordun. 
1 1422 Thomas Walsingham. 



Continental Latin Writers 

t c. 1240 Jacques de Vitry. 
t c. 1261 Etienne de Bourbon. 
190 '-1264 Vincent de Beauvais. 



APPENDIX I 



461 



French 

c. 1173 *Garnier du Pont St. Maxence. 
c. 1 175 Benet: Vie de St. Thomas. 
1160-74 Wace : Roman de Rou. 

1174 Jordan Fantosme : History. 
1172-76 Benoit : Chronigue des Dues. 
1175-85 *Marie de France: Lais (c. 
1175); Ysopet (c. 1180); 
Espurgatoire St. Pairiz. 
*Amis et Amiles ; Partheno- 
feus ; Floire et Blanchef/our 
(2 versions) ; Aucassin et 
Nicolete. 
*Lambert li Tort: Alexandre. 
Biblical Paraphrases — Lives of 
Saints — Met. Homilies — 
Psalters, etc. 
Samson de Nanteuih Proverbes 
de Salomon, etc. 
ft 1180 Simon de Fresne : St. George. 

*Li Proz'erbe au vilain. 
c. 1 180 *Beroul ; cont. c. 1209. 
c. 1 185 Hugh of Rutland : Hippome- 

don ; Protesilaus. 
ft 1190 Poem, on Conquest of Ireland. 

Folie Tristan. 
1192-94 *Richard I. — Poems. 
c. 1196 *Ambroise : Hist, de la Guerre 

Sainte. 
c. 1200 * Roman de Renart (part). 
*Andre de Coutances. 
*Jean Bodel. 
Chardri (1200-20?). 
200-13.00 Chansons de Geste — Lays — 
Fabliaux — Lyrics — Debates 

— Lapidaries — Bestiaries — 
Religious and Didactic Verse 

— Bits — Poems on Courtly 
Love — Secular Verse — Lives 
of Saints— Pious Tales— Ser- 
mons — Bible-Paraphrase, etc. 
Booksof Edification, Instruc- 
tion, and Utility (French and 
Anglo-French). 

1200-35 Boeve de Haumtone — Guy de 
Warwick — Foulque Fitz- 
Warine — Eustache le 
Moine. 
*Renaud de Beaujeu : Guin- 
glain. 
Floire et Blanchejiour ; 
Melior et Ydoine (Debates). 
Amadas et Ydoine. 
* Mantel Mautaille. 
Mystery of Resurrection. 
c. 1205 *Guillaume de Palerme. 
c. 1210 *Dolopathos. 
c. 1210 Guillaume le Gere: Bestiaire. 
1212-14 Angier : Dialogues of St. 

Gregory, etc. 
c. 1213 *Villehardouin : Conqueste de 

Constantinople. 
c. 1215 Robert de Boron : Joseph — 
Merlin— Perceval (?). 
*Continuators of Crestien's 
Perceval: Gerbert, Manes- 
sier, Wauchier de Denain. 
ft 1220 *Prose Romances.: Queste del 
Si. Graal — Lancelot — 



English 

Sinners Beware ; Death ; 
Love - Song oj Our Lady ; 
Wooing oj Our Lord; Pas- 
sion oj Our Lord ; Orisons, 
etc. (S.W.). 
Doomsday (S.M.). 
Long Lije (K.). 
Compassio Mariae (N.W.M.) 
Benedictine Rule (Winteney). 
Lives of Saints — Religious, 
Didactic, and Secular Lyrics 
—Proverbs (S. and M.). 
Stimmer is y-comen in (N.). 
Judas (S.W .). 
1208-13 Bestiary (N.E.M.). 
before 1237 Ancren Riwle (Dorset). 

c. 1220 Owl and iVigiitingale(T)orset). 
after iii(> Thomas de Hales : Love Rune 
(S.W.). 
c. 1244 When Holy Church is under 

foot (S.W. ). 
c. 1250 Geste of King Horn (S.M.). 

Genesis and Exodus (S.E.M.). 
Assumptio Mariae. 
1250-1300 Political Songs and Satires — 
Religious and Secular Lyrics 
— Pious Tales — Saints' Lives 
and Legends — Religious and 
Didactic Verse (15 Signs, 7 
Sins, 5 Joys, 10 Command- 
ments, Doomsday, Passion, 



:.). 



1250-75- 



Layamon, B. 
1258 Proclamation by Henry III. 
ft 1258 Dame Sirith (S. E. from 
S.W.M.) [De Clerico et 
Puella(N.M.)] 

Fox and Wolf (S.E.)— Land 
of Cokaygne ,(S.). 

Floris and Blauncheflour 
(E.M.). 
1275-1300 Sir Tristrem (N.) — Amis and 
AmilounQi.-E.U.). 

Arthur and Merlin; King 
Alisaunder; Richard Coer 
de Lion (K.). 

Prozwrbs ofHendyng(S.M. ?). 

St. Patrick's Purgatory (K.)— 
Ypotis (S.K.M.). 

Birth of Jesus, Childhood of 
Jesus (S.). 

Stacions of Rome (S.E.M.)— 
Estoire del Evangile 
■ (S. E. M.) — Maximion . 
(S.W.M.) i — Evangelium 
Nicodemi (Sc.) — Lay Folks' 
Mass Book (N.) — Little 
Cato ; Cato Major (S. from 
N.) — Dispute between Jesus 
and Scribes (K.) — Dispute 
between Thrush and Night- 
ingale (S. ). 

Fragment on Pop.Science(M.). 

Castle of Love (S.E.M.). 

Harrowing of Hell— Mystery 
(N.E.M.). 

Legend Cycle (N.). 



462 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



1292 

1294 
1295 
1296 

1297 
1298 
1302 
1305 
1306 

1307-27 
1309-78 

I3 J 2 



1314 
1321 
1327 



Historical Events 

10 Expulsion of Jews. 

11 Acre lost— Last of Christian 

possessions in Palestine 
abandoned. 

Balliol becomes King of Scot- 
land. 

Wars in France and Scotland. 

First perfect Parliament. 

Capture of Berwick. 

Revolt of Scots under Wallace. 

Battle of Falkirk. 

Battle of Courtrai. 

Wallace executed. 

Bruce crowned. 



Edward II. 

Popes at Avignon. 

Order of Knights Templars 

dissolved. 
Execution of Piers Gaveston. 
Battle of Bannockburn. 
The Despensers exiled. 
Edward deposed and murdered. 



1327-77 Edward III. 



1 1329 
1333 
1346 



1349 

1360 

1376 

1313-80 

1376 
1377-99 



c. 1324-84 
c. 1330-1408 
c. 1340-1400 



Regency of Isabella and 
Mortimer. 

Robert Bruce. 

Battle of Halidon Hill. 

Battle of Neville's Cross. 

Battle of Crecy — Hundred 
Years' War. 

Black Death (also 1361, 1369). 

Treaty of Bretigny. 

Death of Black Prince. 

Bertrand du Guesclin, Con- 
stable of France. 

The Good Parliament. 

Richard II. 
Wat Tyler's revolt. 
Battle of Otterburn. 
Statute of Praemunire 

John Wycliffe. 
John Gower. 
Geoffrey Chaucer. 



Continental Latin Writers 

t 1280 Albertus Magnus. 

c. 1225-74 Thomas Aquinas. 

1221-74 Bonaventura. 

1235-1314 Arnoldus de Villa Nova. 



Provencal 

fii27 William, Count of Poitiers. 

t c. 1185 Macabru. 

\c. 1195 Bernard de Ventadour. 
Bertran de Born. 

1 1196 Alphonso II. of Aragon. 

c. 1200 Arnaut Daniel. 

fl. 1200 Bertran de Born (the Younger). 

\c. 1215 Peire Vidal. 

1 1230 Savaric de Mauleon. 

c. 1240 Gaucelm Faidit. 

t c. 1255 Sordello. 



T1246 

1230 ?-g8 

ft. 1270-87 

1265-1321 

!3°4-74 

1313-75 



Italian 

Albertano of Brescia. 

Jacobus de Voragine. 

Guido delle Colonne. 

Dante. 

Petrarch. 

Boccaccio. 



1 1278 Niccola of Pisa. 
1240-1300 Cimabue. 
1266-1337 Giotto. 



1170-S0 
1192-1202 



Eilhart von Oberg : Tristan. 
Erec, 



1195 



1203-15 



c. 1215 



1190-1200 
1242-50 
c. 1300 



Hartman von 

Yivein. 
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven : 

Lanzeht. 
Wolfram von Eschenbach : 

Parzival. 
Gottfried von Strassburg : 

Tristan. 
c. 1170-1230 Walther von der Vogelweide, 

and the Minnesinger. 
Nibelungenlied. 
Ulrich von Turheim : Tristan. 
Heinrich von Freiberg : 

Tristan. 

Scandinavian and Welsh 

1067-1148 Ari the historian. 
c. 1140-1260 Chief Icelandic Sagas. 
1178-1241 Snorri Sturluson. 
c. 1220 Prose Jidda. 
c. 1250 Codex Regius of the Poetic 
Edda written. 
c. 1226-50 French Lays and Romances 
translated. 

? 1080-1260 Tales of Mabinogion (MS. of 
Red Book of Hergest, first 
half of fourteenth century). 
1 1197 Owen, author of Hirlas Horn. 



APPENDIX I 



463 



French 



■Sept 



C. \12i, 

c. 1237 

c. 1240 
1243 
1245 



1267 



c. 1265 
1271 

1225-85 

C. 1270-80 

c. 1250-70 
c. 1277 

c. 1280 

1298-1315 

c. 1300 

c. 1307 

1309 

1310-15 



c. 1380 

1337-1410 

ti369 
\c. 1474 



Tristan — Perceval - 

Sages. 
*Comte de Bretaigne : Pro- 

verbes. 
*Salomon et Marconi. 
*Gautier de Coinci : Miracles 

de Notre Dante. 

* Viede Guillaume le Marechal. 
*Guillaume de Lorris : Roman 

de la Rose. 

*Grand St. Graal. 

*Sidrac. 

*Gautier de Metz: Image du 
Monde. 
Grosseteste (?) : Chastel 
d Amour. 

*Last French Redactions of 
Romances — Political and 
Satirical Songs — Religious, 
Didactic, and Secular Lyrics 
— Homilies, Legends, Saints' 
Lives— Pious Tales, Miracles 
of Our Lady — Debates — 
Mysteries and Miracles — 
Books of Instruction and 
Edification — Fabliaux. 

*Roman de Renart. 

*La Paix aux Anglais — La 
Charte aux Anglais. 
Robert of Gretham : Corset, 

Miroir. 
Pierre of Peckham : Miroir. 
William of Wadington: 
Manuel des Pechies. 

*Brunetto Latini : Tresor. 

*Rustician of Pisa. 

*Rustebeuf. 

*Philippe de Beaumanoir. 

*Adam de la Halle. 

*Jean de Meung : Roman de la 
Rose. 

*Adenet : Cleomades. 

*Marco Polo : Travels. 

*Le Chdtelain de Couci. 
Walter of Bibbysworth. 
Pers de Langtoft. 

*Joinville : Vie de St. Louis. 

*Jacques de Longuyon : Voeux 
du Paon. 
Nicole Bozon: Conies 
Moralises. 

*Guillaume de Deguilleville. 

* Vows of Heron. 
Chroniques de London. 

*Chandos - Herald : Vie du 

Prince Noir. 
*Froissart. 

Sir Thos. Gray : Scalacronica. 

Jehan de Waurin : Recueil. 



English 

Gloucester Legend Cycle 
(S.W.M.). 
c. 1298 Robert of Gloucester : Chron- 
icle (S.W .M.). 
c. 1297 Song 0/ Husbandmen (S.). 
c. 1300 Surtees Psalter (N.) — Prose 

Psalter (W.M.). 
c. 1302 Havelok the Dane (N.E.M.). 
1300-25 Poems in Auchinleck MS. 
(1330-40): SirOrfeo (S. E. M.) 
— Sir Degare (S.E.M.)— Le 
Freine (S.E.M. T)~Emare 
(N.E.M.) — Ywain and 
Gawain (N.) — Horn Child 
(N.M.)-Guy of Warwick 
(4 versions, S. ? M.) — Beves 
of Hampton (3 versions, 
N.?M.)— Seven Wise Mas- 
ters (2 versions, S.E., N.) — 
Seven Sages (S.E.M.) — Sir 
Otuel (S.E.M.) — Roland 
and Vernagu (N.E.M.) — 
King of Tarsus (N.E.M.)— 
Pennyworth of Wit 
(S.E.M.). 
C. 1310 Harl. MS. 2253 — Lyrics (Leo- 
minster). 
Elegy on Edward I. (S.W.M.). 
Political Poems — Sermons, 

Legends, etc. 
Speculum Guy (S.E.M.). 
Adam Davy : Dreams. 
William Banister. 
Cursor Mundi (N.). 
1303 Robert of Brunne : Handlyng 
Synne (E.M.). 
1312-27 Short Chronicle. 
1 1327 Thomas Bek of Castelford : 

Chronicle (N.M.). 
c. 1330 Metrical Homilies (N.). 
fl. 1320 William of Shoreham : Poems 

(K.). 
1330-49 Richard Rolle of Hampole : 
Myrou-i — Psalter — Pricke 
of Conscience (N.). 
1338 Robert of Brunne : Chronicle 

(E.M.). 
1340 Dan Michel : Ayenbzte of 
Inwyt (K.). 
1333-52 Lawrence Minot : Poems 

(N.M.). 
c. 1340 Tale of Gamelyn (E.M.). 

Allit. Poems on Alexander 

(W.M.). 
Allit. Morte Arthure 
(N.W.M.). 
c. 1350 Vision of St. Paul; Tren- 
talls of St. Gregory; How 
Good Wife taught her 
Daughter; How Wise Man 
taught his Son (S. E. M.). 
Ipotis—A BC of Aristotle- 
Metrical Treatise on 
Dreams. 
Dispute between Mary and 

Cross (S.W. M.). 
Dispute between Good Man 
and Devil (W.M.). 



464 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



About 1400 

Sir Gowghter (N. E. M.)— Earl o/.Tolouse 
CN.E.M.)—/easte 0/ Sir Gawain (S.M.)— 
Sir Cleges (N.M.)— Laud Troy Book — 
Morte Arthure (.S.M.?)— Song of Roland 
(S.W.M.}— Sir Ferumbras (S. ?)— Siege 0/ 
Milan (N.) — Duke Rowland and Sir 
Oituell (N.)-Sowdan of Babylon (E.M.) 
— Thomas of Erceldoun (N.) — Vision of 
Tundale (N. ?). 

1400-50 
Parthenofie, 2 versions (S.S.M.)— Squire 
of Low Degree (o.M.T)—lpomedon (M.>— 
Sir Triamour(N . M.) — Torrent of Portugal 
(N.M.) — Robert of Sicily (S.M. ?) — Sir 
Generides, 2 versions, one c. 1430 (M.)— 
Partenay (N.M.) — Buik of Alexander, 
1438? (Sc>— Lovelich : Holy Grail, Merlin 
(S.M.)—SirPeny (N.)— Speculum Humana 
Salvationis (N.M. ?)— Tale of Beryn (S.)— 
Owaine Miles (S.)— Arthurs Death (S.>— 
Gesta Romanorum in English (1425-50) — 
Ponthus et Sidone (c. 1450) — Book of Knight 
of La Tour Landry (1422-61) — Thornton 
MS. (1430-44). 

1400-1500 

Lives of Saints — Legends — Pious Tales — 
" Mirrors " — Rituals — Jest-Books — Debates 
— Political Songs and Satires — Books of In- 
struction and Utility (Heraldry. Venery, 
Medicine, Grammar, Husbandry, Urbanity, 
Nurture, Courtesy, Cookery, etc.) — Reli- 
gious, Didactic, and Secular Lyrics — Ballads. 

Wright's Chaste Wife— Miller of Abyng- 
don—Monk and Boy— Tale of Basyn— Cuck- 
old s Dance — How a Plowman learned 
his Paternoster— ChUd of Bristow— Mer- 
chant and his Son — Tale of an Incestuous 
Daughter — Felon So7ve and Friars of Rich- 
mond— Huntyng of the Hare— Why I can't 
be a Nun — Debate of Carpenter s Tools — ■ 
Rule of St. Benet (N.)— A BC of Aristotle 
(several versions), etc. etc. 



Scottish (1450-1500) : Eger and Grim 
— Lancelot of the Laik — Rauf Coilyear — 
Ballad of Nine Nobles — Roswell and 
Lillian, etc. Scottish Writers (above men- 
tioned) : Wyntoun (Chronicle, c. 1425) — 
"Blind Harry" (Wallace, c. 1488)— Dunbar 
(c. 1460-c. 1525) — Henryson (Fables, c. 1476- 
86)— Sir Gilbert Hay (Alexander, 1499). 

English Writers (above mentioned) : 
Occleve (De Regimine, 1413) — Lydgate 
( Troy Book, c. 1410, and Thebes, 1412-21 ; 
Falls, 1424-33)— Audelay (Legends, 1426) — 
R. Misyn (tr. of Rolle, 1434-35) — Capgrave 
(11464, Chronicle to 1417) — Hardyng 
(Chronicle, c. 1465) — Osbern Bokenham 
(Legends, 1443-46) — Benet Burgh (Dist. 
Cato, 1461-65) — Fortescue (t c. 1476) — Malory 
(Morte Darthur, 1469-70). 

Caxton (1422-91), Prints of Romances, 
etc. : Recuyell Troy (1473-74)— Dictys and 
Sayings (1477) — Chronicles (1480) —Godejfroy 
of Bologne (1481) — Reynard (i 4 8i)-Poly- 
chronicon (1482)— Cato (14S3T— Festial (itfj) 
—Golden Legend (1484) — JEsop (1484) — 
Morte Darthur (1485) — Charles the Great 
( 1485)— Paris and Vienne (1485) — Four Sons 
of Aymon (c. itfi^—Blanchardyn (c. 1489) 
— Eneydos (1490), etc. 

Other Romances in Black-letter Editions : 
Salomon and Marcolf (c. 1492) — Helyas 
— Melusine (c. isoo)—Apollonius (1570) — 
Robert the Devil — Sir Desrare— Seven Wise 
Masters — Valentitie and Orson — Virgilius 
— Friar Bacon — Patient Grissel (1619) — 
Lord Berners : Arthur of Little Britain; 
Huon of Bordeaux (1525-33) — Thomas 
Robinson : Seven Champions, George A 
Lincoln, etc. 

Percy Folio MS. (c. 1620; date of poems 
uncertain, fromc. 1300 on): Sir Lambewell— 
Carl 0/ Carlisle — The Green Knight — Turk 
and Gawain — Weddyng of Sir Gawain — 
Guy and Colbrand — King Estmere — King 
Arthur and the King of Cornwall — Sir 
Lionell— Merlin— King Arthur's Death- 
Robin Hood, etc. 



APPENDIX 1 



465 



English 

Dispute between Christian 
and Jew (Sc). 

Vernon MS.— Lyrics, Legends, 
Sermons, etc., 1370-80 
(S.E.M.?). 

Ballads of Robin Hood, etc. — 
Popular Tales. 
1350-1400 Joseph of Arimathea (W.M.) 
— William of Palerne 
(W.M.) — Best, of Troy 
(N.W.M.) — Awntyrs of 
Arthur (N.W.M.). 

Athelston (N.E.M.)- Sir 
Percyvelle (N. M.) - Ches- 
tre's Launfal (S.E.) — 
Libeaus Desconus (S.E.) — 
Octavian (S.E.) — Octavian 
(N.) — Ipojnedon (2 versions : 
N.M., N.W.M.)— La Bone 
Florence (N.M. ?) — Sir 
Eglamour (N.M.) — Sir, 
Isumbras (N.) — Sir Degre-' 
vant (N.) — Sir Amadace 
(N.) — Avowyng of Arthur 
(N.)— Siege of Troy (S.)— 
Siege of Jerusalem (S.) — 
Vest, offer. (S.W.M.)— 
Chevalere Assigne (M.) — 
? Golagros and Gawain 



English 

(Sc.)— Arthur (S.)— Hermit 

and Outlaw (M.) — Smith 

and Dame (S. from N.). 
Psystyl Sweet Susan (Sc). 
Parl-ment 3 Ages, (W.M.) 

— Winner and Waster 

(W.M.). 
off. Cleanness ; Patience ; Pearl; 

Gawain and the Green 

Knight (W.M.). 
1375 Barbour's Bruce (Sc.) — 

Legends (Sc). 
Langland : Vision, A, 1362 ; 

B, 1377; C, c. 1398 (W.M. ). 
1382 Wyclifife : Trans, of Bible. 
1387 Lydgate's Esopus. 

John of Treves (Trevisa) : 

Polychronicon (c. 1387) ; 

De Proprietatibus Rerum 

(1391-98). 
Books of Courtesy (Babces 

Book, etc.). 
Books of Instruction and 

Utility (Science of Cirurgie, 

etc.). 
Sermon against Miracle 

Plays. 
1400 John Mirk : Inst. Parish 

Priests — Festial. 



APPENDIX II 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

WORKS REFERRED TO BY ABBREVIATED TITLES 

Abbot. Abbotsford Club Publications. 

Anglia. Anglia, Zeitschrift filr englische Philologie, etc. , ed. R. P. Wiilcker 

and M. Trautmann, Halle, 1877 ff. 
Archseol. Archceologia Cambrensis, A Record of the Antiquities of Wales, etc., 

5th series, L., 1846-85. 
Archiv. Archiv filr das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, ed. 
L. Herrig et al., Elberfeld and Iserlohn, 1846 ff. ; Braunschweig, 1849 ff. 
Bann. Bannatyne Club Publications, Edin., 1823 ff. 
Boddeker. Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. Hart, 2253, ed. Karl Boddeker, 

B., 1878. 
Camd. Camden Society Publications, 1838 ff. 
Ch. S. Chaucer Society Publications, L., 1868 ff. 
Child. The English and Scottish Popzdar Ballads, ed. Francis James Child, 

5 vols., Boston, 1882-98. 
E.E.T.S. [E.S.] Early English Text Society Publications, 1864 ff. [E.S. 

Extra Series.] 
Ellis. George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, rev. 

J. O. Halliwell, Bohn's Antiquarian Library, L., 1848. (This work was 

first published 3 vols., L. 1805. This one- volume edition is cited because 

more accessible. ) 
Eng. Poets. Works of the English Poets from Chatecer to Cowper, etc., ed. 

Samuel Johnson and Alexander Chalmers, 21 vols., L., 1810. 
E. St. Englische Studien, ed. E. Kolbing, Heilbronn, 1877 ff. ; J. Hoops, 

Leip., 1900 ff. 
Erl. Beit. Erlanger Peitrdge zur englischen Philologie, ed. Hermann Varn- 

hagen, Erlangen, 1889 ff. 
Furnivall. Early English Poems and Lives of Saints, etc. , ed. F. J. Furni- 

vall, B., 1862. 
Gross. C. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History from the earliest 

Times to about 1485, L., 1900. 

466 



APPENDIX II 467 



Harv. St. N. Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, Boston, 

1892 ff. 
Hazlitt Rem. Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, ed. W. 

Carew Hazlitt, 4 vols., L., 1864-66. 
Hist. Litt. H Istoire Littiraire de la France, P., 1733-1898. 
Horstmann. Altenglische Legenden, etc. , ed. Carl Horstmann, Paderborn, 1875 ; 

Sammlung altenglischer Legendeu, Heilbronn, 1878 ; Altenglische Legenden, 

Neue Folge, Heilbronn, 1881 (referred to under the respective dates). 
Laing. Early Metrical Tales, ed. David Laing, Edin., 1826; Early Popular 

Poetry of Scotland, etc., rev.W. C. Hazlitt, 2 vols., L., 1895 ; A Pemiiwort h 

of Witte, etc. (Auch. MS. poems), Abbot., 1857 (referred to under 

respective dates). 
Madden. Syr Gawayne, a Collection, etc., ed. Sir Frederic Madden, L., 

Bannatyne Club, 1S39. 
Mait. Maitland Club Publications, Edin., 1830 ff. 
Matzner. Altenglische Sprachproben, ed. E. Matzner, B., 1867. 
Mod. L. N. Modern Language Notes, ed. A. M. Elliott et al., Bait., 1886 ff. 
P. B. Beit. Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache mid Literatur, ed. 

Hermann Paul and Wilhelm Braune, Halle, 1874 ff. 
P.F.MS. Bishop Percys Folio Manuscript, ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furni- 

vall, L., 1867-69. 
Percy Soc. Percy Society Publications, L., 1840-52. 
Philol. Soc. Philological Society Transactions, L., 1854 ff. 
Pub. M.L.A. Publications of the Mod. Lang. Association of America, ed. 

A. M. Elliott, Bait., 1884 ff. ; J. W. Bright, 1893 ff. ; C. H. Grandgent, 

Cambridge, Mass., 1902 ff. 
Radcl. M. Radcliffe College Monographs, Boston, 1891 ff. 
Rel. Ant. Reliquice Antiques, ed. T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell, L., 1845. 
Ritson. Ancient English Metrical Romances, ed. Joseph Ritson, 3 vols., L., 

1802 ; revised ed. E. Goldsmid, Edin., 1884. (The revised edition is 

referred to because now more accessible. ) 
Ritson, A.S. Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry LIT. to the Revolu- 
tion, L., 1790 ; rev. ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 5 vols., L., 1S77. (Revised edition 

referred to.) 
Robson. Three Early English Metrical Romances, ed. John Robson, L., 

1842. 
Rom. Romania, ed. P. Meyer and Gaston Paris, P., 1872 ff. ; ed. P. Meyer 

and A. Thomas, 1902 ff. 
Roxb. Roxburghe Club Publications, L., 1814 ff. 
S.A.T.F. Societe des anciens textes francais Publications, P., 1875 ff. 
ScT.S. Scottish Text Society Publications, Edin., 1884 ff. 
Thorns. A Collection of Early Prose Romances, ed. W. J. Thorns, L., 1828. 
Thorn. Roms. The Thornton Romances, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camd., 1844. 
Ward. H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum, 2 

vols., L., 1883-93. 



468 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Weber. Metrical Romances of the XIII., XIV., and XV. Centuries, ed. 

Henry Weber, 3 vols., Edin., 1810. 
Wright, P.S. Political Songs of England, from the Reign of John to that of 

Edward II, ed. T. Wright, Camd., L., 1839; E. Goldsmid, Edin., 1884. 
Wright, P. P. Political Poems and Songs from the Accession of Edward III. to 

that of Richard III, ed. T. Wright, Rolls Series, L., 1859-61. 
Wright, A.L. Anecdota literaria, ed. T. Wright, L., 1844. 
Wright, S. L.P. Specimens of lyric Poetry composed in England in the Reign 

of Edward I. , ed. T. Wright, L., 1842. 
Z.R. P. Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie, ed. G. Grober, Halle, 1877 ff. 
Z. F. S. L. Zeitschrift fur franzosische Sprache und literatur, ed. G. Korting 

and E. Koschwitz, Oppeln, 1879 ff. ; D. Behrens, Oppeln. and Leip., 

1891 ff. 

Abbreviations of names of places : Bait. , Baltimore ; B. , Berlin ; Edin. , Edin- 
burgh ; L. , London ; Leip. , Leipzig ; N. Y. , New York ; Oxf. , Oxford ; 
P., Paris. 
Additional bibliographical information on Middle English productions may 
be found in the works of Brandl and Korting mentioned below, and in 
Jahresbericht iiber die Erscheinungen atif dem Gebiete der germanischen 
Philologie, B., 1880 ff. ; Leip., 1883 ff. 

Note. — The name of the author of a work precedes the title ; that of an 
editor follows it. Discussions of a work are preceded by "cf." 

GENERAL HISTORIES AND WORKS OF REFERENCE 
(A) English Literature 

Brandl, A. Mittelenglische Literatur, in Paul's Grundriss der germ. Phil., 

Strassburg, 1893, ii. 609-736 (2nd ed. in preparation). 
Courthope, W. J. Hist, of Eng. Poetry, L., 1895 ff - 
Diet, of National Biography, L. Stephen and S. Lee, L., 1885- 1904. 
Garnett, R., and Gosse, Ed. Eng. Lit., An Plustrated Record, _L., 1903-4. 
Jusserand, J. J. Hist. litt. du peuple anglais, P., i. (2nd ed.) 1896, ii. 1904; 

Eng. ed., i., L. and N.Y., 1895. 
Korting, G. Grundriss der Gesch. der engl. Litt., 3rd ed. , Minister, 1899. 
Morley, H. English Writers, iii.-v., L., 18S8-90. 
Pollard, A. W. In Chambers' Cyclopedia of Eng. Lit., new ed., L., 1901-3, 

i. 31-119, 150-162. 
Saintsbury, G. Short Hist, of Eng. Lit., L. and N.Y., 1898. 
Snell, F. W. Age of Chaucer, L., 1901 ; Age of Transition, 2 vols., L., 1905. 
Taine, H. Hist, de la litt. angl, 2nd ed., P., 1866-71; tr. H. Van Laun, 

Edin., 1871 ; new ed., N.Y., 1875. 
Ten Brink, B. Gesch. der- engl. Litt., 2nd ed., A. Brandl, Strassburg, 1899; 

1st ed., tr., Vol. I., H. M. Kennedy, N.Y., 1888; Vol. II. Pt. I., W. C. 

Robinson, 1893 ; Pt. II., L. D. Schmitz, 1896. 



APPENDIX II 469 



Warton, T. Hist, of Eng. Poetry, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, L., 1871. 
Wiilker, R. Gesch. der engl. Litt., Leip., 1896. 

(B) French Literature 

Grober, G. Grundriss der rom. Philologie, ii., Strassburg, 1898. 

Hist. Litt. de la France, P., 1733-1898. 

Lanson, G. Hist, de la litt. f rang., P., 7th ed., 1902. 

Paris, G. La litt. franc, ate moye7i dge, 3rd ed., P., 1 905 ; Mediaval French 
Literature, L., 1903 (Temple Primer) ; La poesie du rnoyen Age, 2 series, 
P., 1885, 1895; Poemes et Ligendes du moyen dge, P. ,1900. 

Petit de Julleville, L. Hist, de la litt. franc., P., 1896-99. 

Suchier, H., and Birch- Hirschfeld, A. Gesch. derfranz. Litt., Leip., 1900. 



CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTION (pp. 1-25) 

On the characteristics of mediaeval literature in general, cf. G. Paris's 
preface to Petit de Julleville's " Histoire," vol. i. — On various aspects of 
life in the Middle Ages, see "Social England," H. D. Traill, L., 1893, 
illus. ed. 1901 ; and "Companion to English History (Middle Ages)," F. P. 
Barnard, Oxf., 1902. — On the universities, see H. Rashdall, "The 
Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages," L., 1S95. — On the Auchinleck 
MS., see the introductions by Sir Walter Scott and Prof. E. Kolbing to their 
editions of Sir Tristrem (Edin., 1804 ff.; Heilbronn, 1S82). — On the Thornton 
MS., see Thorn. Roms. — On the minstrels, cf. W. K. Chambers, "The 
Mediaeval Stage," Oxf., 1900, vol. i. 

CHAPTER II.— ANGLO-LATIN LITERATURE (pp. 26-110) 

For a detailed bibliography of the majority of the works mentioned in this 
chapter, see G. Grober, " Ubersicht liber die Lat. Litt. von der Mitte des 6. 
Jahrhunderts bis 1350" ; in " Grundriss der rom. Phil.," Strassburg, 1893, ii. 1, 
esp. pp. i8"l ff. See alsoT. Wright, " Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo- 
Norman Period," L., 1846. — C. Gross, "Sources and Literature of English 
History," L., 1900. — "Diet. National Biography," under the names of 
individual authors. 

In addition to general histories, see E. A. Freeman, " History of the 
Norman Conquest," 3rd ed., 6 vols., 1877. — K. O. Norgate, "England 
under the Angevin Kings," 2 vols., L., 1887. — J. Jacobs, "Jews of 
Angevin England," L. , 1893. — W. Stubbs, "Lit. and Learning at the 
Court of Henry II." (in " Seventeen Lectures," vi., vii.), Oxf., 1886. --J. 
Gairdner, "Early Chronicles of Europe (England)," L., 1879.—" Anglo 
Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century," ed. T. 
Wright, Rolls Series, 2 vols., L., 1S72. — "Latin Poems attrib. to W 
Mapes," ed. T. Wright, Camd., 184 1. —Wright, P.S. — M. Bateson 



470 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

"Mediaeval England" (Story of the Nations Series), N.Y., 1904. — J. S. 
Brewer, " Monumenta Franciscana," Rolls Series, 2 vols., L., 1858-82. — 
A. Jessop, "The Coming of the Friars," L., 4th ed., 1890. — E. Lavisse, 
" Histoire de France," P., 1901 ff. (esp. vol. iii. by Ch.-V. Langlois). — 
J. E. Sandys, "A History of Classical Scholarship from the Sixth Century 
B.C. to the end of the Middle Ages," Cambridge, 1903. — G. Saintsbury, "A 
History of Criticism," etc., 3 vols., Edin., 1900-4.— H. H. Milman, "His- 
tory of Latin Christianity," 8 vols., N.Y., i860. — B. Haureau, "Histoire de 
la philosophie scolastique," 3 vols. , P., 1872-80. — F. Ueberweg, " Grundriss 
der Geschichte der Philosophie," 8th ed., M. Heinze, B., 1894-1902 (4th ed. 
trans. G. S. Morris, 2 vols., N.Y., 1872-74). — R. L. Poole, "Illustrations of 
the History of Mediseval Thought," L., 1884. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. J. Earle and C. Plummer, 2 vols.,"Oxf., 1892- 
99 (ed. B. Thorpe, with trans., Rolls Series, 2 vols., L., 1861). — For Gesta 
Herewardi, etc., see Gross, Nos. 1780, 1443, 1378, 1379. — For the Book of 
Ely, see Gross, No. 1372. — T. Stephens, "The Lit. of the Kymry," 2nd 
ed., D. S. Evans, L., 1876.— D. Hyde, "A Literary Hist, of Ireland," 
N.Y., 1899. — For Icelandic sagas, see G. Vigfusson, " Sturlunga Saga," I. 
Prolegomena, Oxf. , 1878 ; Gross, § 35. — Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica, 
ed. P. E. Miiller, 3 vols., 1839-58; A. Holder, Strassburg, 1886; "First 
Nine Books," tr. O. Elton and F. York Powell, L., 1894. — For quotations 
from Dr. Lane Poole (p. 50) and Mr. Robert Steele (p. 91), see "Social 
England," 1894, i. 336, ii. 76. — For that from Mr. Joseph Jacobs, see illus. 
ed., i. 670-71.— On FitzStephen, see Gross, p. 434. 

On Provencal literature, see Stimming, in Grober's "Grundriss," ii. 2; 

F. Diez, " Leben und Werke der Troubadour"; "Die Poesie der Trouba- 
bour," 2nd ed., K. Bartsch, Leip., 1882, 1883 ; J. H, Smith," The Troubadours 
at Home," 2 vols., N. Y., 1899 ; " Lives of the Troubadours," tr. Ida Farnell, 
L., 1896; H. Suchier, in "Geschichte," pp. 56-96. — On Welsh literature, 
see Stephens, work cited above. — On Icelandic literature, see, together with 

G. Vigfusson, as above, Vigfusson and F. York Powell, " Corpus Poeticum 
Boreale," Oxf., 1883, and Finnur Jonsson, "Den oldnorske og oldislandske 
Litteraturshistorie," Cop., 1894. — Snorri's Edda, Cop., 1848 fL — "Die Lieder 
der Edda," B. Sijmons and H. Gering, Halle, 1888 ff. — On Italian litera- 
ture, see T. Casini, in Grober's " Gundriss," ii. 3 ; A. Gaspary, " Gesch. d. 
ital. Literatur," B., 1885-88; tr. Zingarelli, Turin, 1887; A. D'Ancona and 
O. Bacci, "Manuale della Litt. Ital.," Florence, 1892 ff. ; B. Wiese and E. 
Percopo, "Gesch. d. ital. Lit.," Leip. and Vienna, 1899. — On German 
literature, see W. Scherer, "Gesch. d. deut. Lit.," B., 1883; tr. Mrs. F. C. 
Conybeare, 2 vols., N.Y., 1886; W. Golther, "Gesch. d. deut. Litt," 
Stuttgart, 1893; — • Nibelungenlied, ed. K. Bartsch, 6th ed., Leip., 1886; 
tr. W. N. Lettsom, L., 1850; G. H. Needier, N.Y., 1904. — The Czd, ed. 
Ramon Menendez Pidal, Madrid, 1898 ; A. M. Huntington, N.Y., 1897-1903. 
— On Spanish literature, see G. Baist, in Grober's " Grundriss," ii. 2. 

On Geoffrey of Monmouth, see below, Ch. V. , under Matter of Britain ; 



APPENDIX II 471 



on Bleheris and Thomas, see below, Ch. III. ; on the Ancren Riwle, see below, 
Ch. VIII. ; on The Owl and the Nightingale and other debates, see below, 
Ch- III. and Ch. IX., under Debates ; on Richard Rolle, see below, Ch. VIII.; 
for the "History of Friar Bacon," etc., see Thorns; cf. D. Comparetti, 
" Virgilio nel medio Evo," Florence, 1896. — On Chaucer's learning, see T. R. 
Lounsbury, " Studies in Chaucer," N.Y., 1892, vol. ii. — The quotations from 
the Philobiblon are from the translation of E. C. Thomas, L., 1888 ; King's 
Classics, L., 1903. 

CHAPTER III.— ANGLO-NORMAN AND ANGLO-FRENCH 
LITERATURE (111-139) 

See, in addition to the histories of G. Paris, Grober, and Suchier, G. Paris, 
"La litt. normande avant l'annexion," P., 1899; O. Scheibner, " Ueber 
die Herrschaft der franz. Sprache in England," Program, Annaberg, 1880; 
J. Vising, " Sur la versification • anglo - normande," Upsala, 1884; ibid. 
" Franska - Spraket i England," Goteborg, 1900 ff. ; D. Behrens, "Franz. 
Studien," v. 2; ib., Paul's " Grundriss," 2nd ed., i. 950 ff. ; L. E. Menger, 
"The A.N. Dialect," N.Y., 1904. 

Lois de Guillaume le Conquirant, J. M. Matzke, P., 1899. 

Romance (pp. 115-118) : — Robert Biquet : Lai du Cor, F. Wulff, Lund, 
1888. — Marie de France : Lais, K. Warnke, 2nd ed., Halle, 1900 ; see 
below, p. 475; cf. Schofield, Harv. St. and N., v. 22; Pub. M.L.A., 
xv. 121. — Thomas: Tristan, J. Bedier, S.A.T.F., 1902-5; see below, p. 
476. — Bleheris: see J. L. Weston, Rom., xxxiii. 333 ff., xxxiv. 100 ff. — 
Robert de Boron : see Suchier, " Geschichte," p. 132 ; Merlin, G. Paris and 
J. Ulrich, S.A.T.F., Introd. ; Rom., xxiv. 472; Journal des Savants, 1901, 
pp. 714-15 ; below, p. 477. — La Folie Tristan, see Bedier's ed. of Tristan. — 
Hornet Rimenhild, F. Michel, P., 1845 > Brede and Stengel (Ausg. u. Abhand. 
viii.), Marburg, 1883; cf. below, p. 477. — Lai de Havelok, Madden, 
Roxb., 1828; Michel, P., 1833; see below, p. 477; cf. Kupferschmidt, 
Roman. Studien, iv. 411 ff. — On Aelof and Waldef, see Schofield, "The 
Story of Horn and Rimenhild," Pub. M.L.A., xviii. 50. — Guy de Warwick, 
Schonemann, Leip., 1842; see below, p. 477; cf. O. Winneberger, in 
Frankfurter neuphil. Beit., 1887, pp. 86 ff. — Boeve de Haumtone, A. Stimming, 
Halle, 1S99. — Hugh of Rutland, Ipomedon, Kolbing and Koschwitz, 
Breslau, 1889; see below, p. 478; cf. Ward, i. 728 ff.—Amadas et Ydoine, 
Hippeau, P., 1863; see G. Paris, " Furnivall Miscellany," L., 1901, p. 386. 
— Eustace of Kent: see P. Meyer, "Alexandre," below, p. 478. — Richard 
Coer de Lion, see below, p. 479 ; Eng. poem to be edited E.E.T.S. — Wistace 
le Maine, F. Michel, P. and L., 1834; Foerster and Trost (Rom. Bibl. iv.) ; 
cf. Rom., xxi. 279. — Fulk FitzWarine, in " Nouvelles en prose du XIV e 
Siecle," L. Moland and Ch. d'Hericault, P., 1858 ; Hist, de Foulques 
FitzWarin, Fr. Michel, P., 1840; Th. Wright (with Eng. tr.), Warton 
Club, L., 1855. — Rustician of Pisa: see Ward, i. 367. — On Guillaume 
cCAngleterre, see Rom., xxix. 155 ff. 



472 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Tales (p. 118) : — For the fabliaux written in England, see J. Bedier, 
" Les Fabliaux," 2nd ed., P., 1895; on the Roman de Renart, see below, 
p. 479. — Marie : Fabeln, K. Warnke, Halle, 1900; Espurgatoire St. 
Pattiz, T. A. Jenkins, Philadelphia, 1894; Chicago, 1903.— Adgar : Marten 
Legenden, C. Neuhaus (Altfranz. Bibl., ix.), Heilbronn, 1886; cf. Rom., xxxii. 
394 ff. — William of Wadington : Furnivall, Roxb., L., 1862; E.E.T.S., 
119 ; cf. Hist. Litt. xxviii. 179 ff. ; Rom., xxix. 5, 47 ff. ; cf. Chap. VIII. — 
Chardry : J. Koch (Altfranz. Bibl., i.), Heilbronn, 1879 ; cf. Rom., xv. 357 ; 
J.Jacobs, " Barlaamandjosaphaz, Eng. Livesof Buddha," L., 1896. — Bozon : 
Conies Moralists, L. T. Smith and P. Meyer, S.A.T.F., P., 1889; cf. P. 
Harry, "A Comp. Study of the ^Esopic Fable in N. Bozon," Cincinnati, 1905. 

Historical Works (119-127): — Gaimar : Estorie des Engleis, T. D. 
Hardy and E. T. Martin, Rolls Series, 1888-89; on David, see end of 
Gaimar's poem. — Wace, Roman de Brut, Le Roux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836 ; 
cf. R. H. Fletcher, Harv. St. and N., x. 1906; Roman de Rou, Andresen, 
1877-79 ; tr. E. Taylor, L., 1837.— Benoit : F. Michel, P., 1836-44 ; cf. Rom. 
Forsch., i. 327, ii. 477. — Pierre de Langtoft : Chronicle, Th. Wright, 
Rolls Series, L., 1866-68. — Garnier : Vie de St. Thomas, C. Hippeau, P., 
1859; cf. E. Etienne, P., 1883; P. Meyer, Fragments, S.A.T.F., P., 1885; 
Gross, No. 2229. — Jordan Fantosme : Chronicle, Fr. Michel, Surtees Soc, 
11, L. and Edin., 1840; R. Howlett, " Chrons. of Reigns of Stephen," etc., 
Rolls Series, L., 1886, iii. 212 ff. ; cf. Rom., x. 306; Eng. Hist. Review, Jan. 
1893, viii. 129 ; A.N. Poem on the Conquest of Ireland, Fr. Michel, L., 1837 ; 
Song of Der?not and the Earl, G. H. Orpen, Oxf., 1892. — Villehardouin : 
Conqueste de Constantinople, N. de Wailly, P., 1872.— Join ville : Vie de St. 
Louis, N. de Wailly, P., 1881. — Ambrose: Histoire de la Guerre Sainte, 
G. Paris (Doc. inedits sur l'hist. de France), P., 1897. — Hist, de Guillaume le 
Mardchal, P. Meyer, P., 1 891- 190 1. — Le Prince Noir, H. O. Coxe, Roxb., 
1842; Fr. Michel, L., 1883; Trivet: French Chron., to be edited, Luick, 
E.E.T.S. ; cf. Skeat's Chaucer, iii. 400.— Brutes, see R. H. Fletcher (under 
Matter of Britain) ; cf. Rom., xvi. 154. — Caxton : Chronicles, L., 1480, etc.; 
see Gross, No. 1733. — Sir Thomas Gray: Scalacronica, J. Stevenson, 
Mait., Edin., 1836.— Jehan de Waurin : Recueil, W. Hardy and E. L. C. 
P. Hardy, Rolls Series, L., 1864-91. — Croniques de London, G. J. Aungier, 
Camd., L., 1844. 

Political Poems and Satires (pp. 127-129) : — See, in general, Wright, 
P.S. — La Bonte des Femmes, Rom., xv. 315. — La Paix aux Anglais, see 
Hist. Litt., xxiii. 449; La Charte aux Anglais, see Rom., xiv. 279. — Vows 
of the Heron (1338), in Wright, P.P., i. 1 ff. 

Religious Works (pp. 129-130) : — See, in general, S. Berger, " La Bible 
franc, au moyen age," P., 1884; J. Bonnard, "Les Traductions de la Bible 
en vers francais au m. a.," P., 1884; cf. Rom., xv. 265, xvii. 121, P. Meyer, 
"Notices et Extraits," xxxiv. 1; M. Gaster, " Greeko-Slavonic, Ilchester 
Lectures," L., 1887. — Apocalypse, Rom., xxv. 174 ff. — Oxf. and Camd. 
Psalters, see Fr. Michel, " Libri Psalmorum," Oxf., i860; Le Livre des 



APPENDIX II 473 



Psaumes, P., 1876; cf. Z.R.P., xi. 513, xii. I ff. ; cf. Les Quatres Livres 
des Rois, Le Roux de Lincy, P., 1841. — On Robert of Gretham, see Rom., 
v. 296, xxxii. 28.] 

Lives of Saints and Legends (pp. 130-132) : — A bibliography of French 
lives of saints will appear in Hist. Litt., xxxiii. 337-78. — Wace : Vie de St. 
Nicholas, Delius, Bonn, 1850 ; Conception de Notre Dame, Mancel et Trebu- 
tien, Caen, 1842. — Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan, Fr. Michel, P., 
1878; cf. C. Wahlund, "Die altfr. Prosaiibersetzung von B.'s Meerfahrt," 
Upsala, 1901. — On Modwenna, cf. H. Suchier, Vie de St. Annan, Halle,' 
1876. — Vie de St. Auban, R. Atkinson, L, 1876.— Denis Pyramus : Vie de 
St. Edmutid le rey, T. Arnold ; " Mems. of St. Edmund's Abbey," 1892, ii. 
135; cf. Rom., x. 299, xxii. 170. — Estoire de St. Aedward le rei, H. Luard, 
"Lives of Edw. the Confessor," L., 1858. — Hugh of Lincoln, see Hist 
Litt.,xxiii. 436; Child, hi. 233 ff. — Guillaume de Berneville : St. Gilles, 
G. Paris et A. Bos, S.A.T.F., P., 1881.— On the legend of St. George, see 
J. E. Matzke in Pub. M.L.A., xvii. 99 ff., xvii. 264 ff. — Chardry : Set 
Dormanz, see above, p. 472. — Angier : Vie de St. Grigoire, P. Meyer, Rom., 
xii. 145 ff. ; Dialogues of Greg, the Great, T. Cloran, Strassburg, 1901. — 
Gower : Mirour de V Omme, Works, G. C. Macaulay, Oxf., 1899, i. 

Didactic Works (pp. 132-133) :— Philippe de Thaun : Li Cumpoz, 
E. Mall, Strassb., 1873; Bestiaire, E. Walberg, Lund, 1900; cf. Reinsch, 
"Das Thierbuch des norm. Dichters Guillaume le Clerc," Leip., 1890; 
" Physiologus," below, p. 480. — Lapidaries, etc., cf. L. Pannier, "Les Lap. 
franc, du moyen age," P., 1882. — Disticha Catonis, see Stengel, Ausg. u. 
Abhand., xlvii.— Walter of Bibbysworth : cf. Rom., xv. 262, xxxii. 44. 
— La Lumiere as Lais, cf. Rom., xv. 287. — Secret des secrets, see Rom., 
xxiii. 314. — La Petite Philosophie, see Rom., xv. 255, xxix. "]2. — L?nage 
du monde, see Rom., xxi. 481. — Sidrac, Hist. Litt., xxxi. 285. 

Lyrics and Debates (pp. 133-136) :— See, in general, A. Jeanroy, " Les 
Origines de la Poesie lyrique en France au moyen age," 2nd ed., P., 1904. — 
For Richard's retrotienge, see K. Bartsch, "La Langue et la Litt. franc.," 
A. Horning, P. , 1887, pp. 31 1 ff. — On Luc DE la Barre, see Ordericus, Bk. xii. 
ch. xxxix. Cf. Steffens, "Die Altfranz. Lieder-Hs. Douce 308," Archiv, xcvii. 
' 283, xcviii. 59, 343, xcix. 77, 339. — P. Meyer, Rom., xxix. 1-84. — On Lyrics 
in England, cf. Rom., iv. 375, xv. 246. — Grosseteste : Chasteau cf Amour, 
M. Cooke, Caxton Soc, 1852-; Eng. Tr. ed. Weymouth, 1864. — On the 
Roman de la Rose, see Langlois, "Origines et Sources du R. de la R.," P., 
1890. — On Blancheflour et Florence, and Melior et Idoine, see W. A. Neilson, 
"Origins and Sources of the Court of Love," Harv. St. and N., vi. 38. — For 
Debate of the Body and Sotd, see " Reimpredigt," H. Suchier, Halle, 1879; 
cf. Rom., xiii. 519, xx. 1, 513, xxix. 636; below, p. 485. — Gower : Balades, 
Works, G. C. Macaulay, Oxf., 1899, i. 335 ff. 

Drama (p. 136) :— Das, Adamspiel, K. Grass, Halle, 1891 (Rom. Bibl., 
vi.) ; cf. G. Paris, Rom., xxi. 275. — La Resurrection du Sauveur, Mon- 
merque et Michel, "Theatre franc, du moyen age," 1839, p. 10. — Cf. Petit de 



474 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Julleville, " Les Mysteres," 1880, and in " Histoire," ii. 399.— On Brunetto 
Latini, see Rom., xiv. 23. — Maniere de Langage, see P. Meyer, "Revue 
Critique," 1870, pp. 382 ; supp. in 1873. 



"CHAPTER IV.— THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (pp. 140-144) 

See, in general : — Morsbach, L. : " Mittelenglische Grammatik," i. Halle, 
1896; Kaluza, M. : "Hist. Gram, der engl. Sprache," i., B., 1900; F. 
Kluge, in Paul's " Grundriss," 2nd ed., i. 926 ff. ; W. W. Skeat, " Principles 
of English Etymology," 2 series, Oxf., 1887-91; Emerson, O. F. : "The 
Hist, of the Eng. Lang.," N.Y., 1894; Lounsbury, T. R. : "The Hist, of the 
Eng. Lang.," rev. ed., N.Y., 1901 ; Puttenham, Richard or George: "The 
Arte of Eng. Poesie," L., 1589, ed. E. Arber, L., 1869. 



CHAPTER V.— ROMANCE (pp. 145-319) 

See, in general: — Billings, A. H., "Guide to the Mid. Eng. Met. 
Romances," N.Y., 1901. — Ker, W. P., "Epic and Romance," L., 1897. 
— Saintsbury, G., "The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory," 
Edin., 1897.— Ellis.— Ward. 

Matter of France (pp. 146-159): — See, in general, Gautier, L., 
" Bibliogr. des Chansons de Geste," P., 1897 ; " Les Epopees francaises," P., 
1878-92, iii. — Nyrop, G, " Storia dell' Epopea Francese nel medio Evo," tr. 
(fr. the Danish), E. Gorra, Florence, 1886. — Paris, G., " Hist, poetique de 
Charlemagne," 2 e ed., P., 1905 ; cf. on Eng. chansons of Charlemagne, Rom., 
xi. 149-53. — Weston, J. L., "The Romance Cycle of Charlemagne," L., 
1 901. — Das altfranz. Rolandslied, E. Stengel, Leip., 1900; " Song of Roland," 
tr. J. O'Hagan, L. , 1880 ; ' ' The Song of Roland, a Summary," etc. , A. Way and 
F. Spencer, 1895 ; tr. I. Butler, Boston, 1904 ; frag, of The Song of Roland, 
S. Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxv. — Karls des Grossen Reise nach fertisale77i, 
etc., E. Koschwitz, Leip., 1900; cf. G. Paris, Rom., ix. 1-50. — King Arthur 
and King Cornwall, Madden, pp. 275 ff. ; P.F.MS., i. 59; Child, i. 
274 ; cf. K. G. T. Webster, E. St., xxxvi. (1906).— Ralph Collier (see under 
Matter of England).— Otuel, Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S.,xxxix; Abbot., 1836; 
cf. Ellis, pp. 357 ff. — Duke Rowlande and Sir Otuell of Spayne, Herrtage, 
E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxv. ; for Fillingham MS. cf. Ellis, pp. 373 ff.—Roidand 
and Vernagu, Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxix. ; Abbot., 1836; cf. Ellis, 
pp. 346 ff. — The Sege of Melayne, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxv. — The Sowdone of 
Baby lone, etc., Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxviii. ; Roxb., 1854. — Sir 
Ferumbras, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxiv. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 379 ff.— Charles the Grete, 
Herrtage, E.E.T.S., xxxvi., xxxvii. — Renaud de Montauban, or the Foure 
Sonnes of Aymoun, O. Richardson, E.E.T.S., E.S., xliv., xlv. — Huon de 
Bordeaux, S. Lee, E.E.T.S., E.S.,xl., xli., xliii., 1. ; retold by R. Steele, L., 
1895. 



APPENDIX II 475 



Matter of Britain (pp. 159-258) :— See, in general, Fletcher, R. H., 
"Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, especially of Great Britain and 
France," Harv. St. and N., x., Boston, 1906. — MacCallum, M. W., 
"Tennyson's Idylls of the King," Glasgow, 1894. — Newell, W. W., "King 
Arthur and the Table Round," Boston, 1897.— Nutt, A., " Celtic and Med. 
Romance," L., 1899.— Paris, G., in Hist. Litt, xxx. (1888). — Paris, P., 
" Les Romans de la Table Ronde," P., 1868.— Paton, L. A., "Studies in 
the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance" (Radcl. M., xiii.), Boston, 1903. 
— Rhys, J., " Studies in the Arthurian Legend," Oxf., 1891. — Weston, J. L., 
" Legend of Sir Gawain," L., 1897 ; " Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac," 1901 ; 
" Legend of Sir Perceval," 1906 ; " King Arthur and his Knights," 1899. 

Gildas : De Excidio et Conquest u Briit., " Mon. Germ. Hist.," 1894, xiii. 
1-110; "Ruin of Britain "-(Eng. and Lat), H. Williams, L., 1899-1901 ; tr. 
Giles, "6 O.E. Chron. " L., 1901, pp. 295 ff.— Nennius : Hist. Britonum, 
Mommsen, in "Mon. Germ. Hist," 1894, xiii. 111 ff. ; tr. Giles, "6 O.E. 
Chron.," L., 1901, pp. 383 ff. ; cf. H. Zimmer, " Nennius Vindicatus," B., 
1893. — Mabinogion, tr. Lady Charlotte Guest, 3 vols., L., 1838-49; 1 vol., 
1877 ; (A. Nutt), L., 1902 ; Temple Classics, 1900 ; French tr. by J. Loth, P., 
1889; cf. A. C. L. Brown, "The R. T. before Wace," Harv. St. and N., vii. 
183 ff. — Geoffrey of Monmouth : Hist. Reg. Brit., A. Schulz, Halle, 1854 ; 
tr. Giles, "6 O.E. Chron.," L., 1901 ; S. Evans, L., 1903. — On the Arthurian 
names in Italy, see P. Rajna, Rom., xvii. 355. — Marie de France : Lais, 
K. Warnke, 2nd ed., Halle, 1900; tr. J. L. Weston, " Four Lays," L., 1900; 
E. Rickert, " Seven Lays," L., 1901 ; W. Hertz, " Spielmannsbuch," 2nd ed., 
Stuttgart, 1900 ; cf. J. Bedier, Rev. des deux Mondes, 1891, cvii. 835-63. — 
Crestien de Troyes : Cliges, Wendelin Foerster, 2nd ed., Halle, 1901.— 
Eric and Enide, 1896. — Yvain, 2nd ed. , 1902. — Lancelot, Guillaume 
d'Angleto-re, 1899. — Perceval le Gallois, Ch. Potvin, P., 1866 (ii.-vi.). — 
Roman de la Charrette, W. J. A. Jonckbloet, The Hague, 1850. — Sir 
Thomas Malory: Morte Darthur, H. O. Sommer, L., 1889-91; Temple 
Classics, I. Gollancz, L., 1899; Globe ed. (1868), Sir E. Strachey, L. and 
N.Y., 1899; A. W. Pollard, L., 1900; Selections, W. E. Mead, Boston, 1897. 

Breton Lays in English (pp. 179-201) :— Thomas Chestre : Sir 
Launfal, Ritson, ii. 1 ff. ; Erling, Kempten, 1883; M. Kaluza, E. St., x. 
165-190 ; Sir Landeval,K. Zimmerman, Konigsberg, 1900 ; Kittredge, Amer. 
Journ. Phil., x. 1-33; P.F.MS., i. 142 ff., 522; cf. Schofield, Pub. M.L.A., 
xv. 121 ff. — Sir Orfeo, Ritson, iii. 3 ff. ; O. Zielke, Breslau, 1880; cf. 
Kittredge, Am. Journ. Phil., vii. 176-202.— King Orfeo, Child, i. 215 ff.— 
Sire Degarre, Abbot, 1849; P.F.MS., iii. 16 ff. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 158 ff. (For 
Tydorel, see Rom., viii. 29 ff.). — Sir Gowghter, K. Breul, Oppeln, 1886; cf. 
M. A. Potter, " Sohrab and Rustum," L., 1902; J. L. Weston, "Three 
Days' Tournament," L., 1902. — Robert the Devil, Hazlitt Rem., i. 217 ff. ; 
Fr. text, E. Loseth, S.A.T.F., P., 1903.— Emare, Ritson, ii. 183 ff. ; 
A. B. Gough, L., 1 901 ; cf. Gough, "The Constance Saga," B., 1902; 
"La Manekine," Suchier, S.A.T.F., P., 1884-85.— Le Freine, Weber, 



476 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

i. 355 ff. ; H. Varnhagen, Anglia, iii. 415 ff. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 538 ff.— 
Patient Grissell, P.F.MS., iii. 421 ff. ; The History of Patient Grissell, 
H. B. Wheatley, L., 1885 (Folklore Tracts, ser. i. 4). — The Erie of Toulow, 
Ritson, iii. 105 ff. ; G. Liidtke, B., 18S1. — The Boy and the Mantle, P.F.MS., 
ii. 304 ff. ; Child, i. 257 ff. ; H. D. and H. G. Webb, Chiswick, 1900 ; cf. 
Rom., xiv. 343.— The Cut-wold's Dance, Hazlitt Rem., i. 35 ff. ; cf. Child, 
i. 257 ff— Thomas of Erceldoune, see below, Ch. VII. — Thomas Rymer, Child, 
i. 317 ff. — For the ballads mentioned, see Child, passim. 

Cycle of Tristan (pp. 201-214): — Thomas: Le Roman de Tristan, 
J. Bedier, S.A.T.F., P., 1902-5; cf. Bedier, "Tristan et Yseut," P., 1900. 
— Gottfried von Strassburg : Tristan, R. Bechstein, Leip., 1869; tr. 
W. Hertz, Stuttgart, 1901 ; tr. J. Weston, L. and N.Y., 1902.— Beroul : 
Tristan, E. Muret, S.A.T.F., P., 1903. — On La Chievre, see Rom., xvi. 
362; cf. G. Paris, " Poemes et Legendes," pp. 113 ff. ; Eilhart von 
Oberg, Tristrant, F. Lichtenstein, Strassb., 1877; Quellen u. Forsch., xix. 
• — Roman en Prose de Tristan, E. Loseth, P., 1891. — Sir Tristrem, Sir Walter 
Scott, Edin., 1804 ff. ; E. Kolbing, Heilbronn, 18S2 ; Sc. T.S., 1886. 

Cycle of Gawain (pp. 214-234) : — Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyght, 
Madden, pp. 1-92; Morris, E.E.T.S., E.S., iv. ; revised 1897; tr. J. L. 
Weston, L., 1898. — The Grene Knight, Madden, 224, 242; P.F.MS., ii. 
56 ff. — The Turke and Gowin, Madden, pp. 243-55. — S}' 7 ' e Gawen and the 
Carle of Carlyle, Madden, pp. 185-206; cf. pp. 256 ff. ; P.F.MS., iii. 275 ff. 
— Avowynge of King Arther, etc., Robson, pp. 56 ff. — Awntyrs of Arthur, 
Madden, pp. 93-128; Robson, pp. 1 ff. ; cf. Biilbring, Archiv, lxxxvi. 
385 ff. — Golagros and Gawane, Madden, pp. 129-83 ; Sc. T.S., Edin., 1892-97 ; 
Anglia, ii. 395 ff. — The Jeaste of Syr Gawayne, Madden, pp. 207-23. — 
Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, Ritson, i. ex. ff. ; Madden, 
pp. 297 ff. ; P.F.MS., i. 103 ff. ; Child, i. 2S8 ff. ; cf. G. H. Maynadier, 
"Wife of Bath's Tale," L., 1901. — Libeaus Desconus, Ritson, ii. 1-90; P.F.MS., 
ii. 404 ff. ; Kaluza, Leip., 1890; tr. J. L. Weston, L., 1902; cf. Schofield, 
Harv. St. and N., iv. — Twain and Gawain, Ritson, i. 115 ff. ; G. Schleich, 
Oppeln, 1887; cf. A. C. L. Brown, "Ywain," etc., Harv. St. and N., viii. 
1-147; Pub. M.L.A., xx. 673 ff— Eger and Grine, P.F.MS., i. 341 ff. ; cf. 
Ellis, pp. 546 ff. — Sir Perceval of Galles, Thorn. Roms., i. ff. ; repr. W. Morris, 
L., 1895. 

Quest of Lancelot (pp. 234-240): — On Lancelot, cf. Rom., x. 465, xii. 
459, xvi. 100. — Ulrich von ZAtzikhoven : Lanzelet, K. A. Hahn, Frank- 
furt a. M., 1845. — Livre d'Artus, cf. M. Freymond, Z.F.S.L., 1900, xvii. 
1-128 ; P. Paris, " Romans de la Table Ronde," 1868-71. — Le Morte Arthur, 
Roxb., L., 1819 ; Furnivall, L. and Cambridge, 1864 ; J. D. Bruce, E.E.T.S., 
E.S., Ixxxviii., 1903 ; cf. Ellis, pp. 143 ff. — Lancelot of the Laik, J. Stevenson, 
Maitl., 1839; Skeat, E.E.T.S., vi. 

Cycle of the Holy Grail (pp. 240-248) : Crestien :' — Perceval le 
Gallois, Potvin, Le Mons, 1866-70 (new ed. in prep, by Baist). — Le Saint- 
Graal, E. Hucher, Le Mons, 1864-68. — Wolfram von Eschenbach : Parzival 



APPENDIX II 477 



and Titurel, E. Martin, Halle, 1900- 1903 ; tr. J. L. Weston, L., 1904; cf. A. 
Nutt, "Studies on the Legend of the Holy Giail," L., 18S8 ; "Legend 
of the Holy Grail," L., 1902 ; E. Wechssler, " Die Sage vom heiligen Graal," 
Halle, 189S (full bibliography). On prose Perlesvaus, seeW. A. Nitze, Bait., 

1902 ; on Robert de Boron, see above, p. 471. — H. Lovelich, The Holy 
Grail, Furnivall, Roxb., 1S61-63 ; E.E.T.S., E.S., xx., xxiv., xxviii., xxx. 
—Joseph of Arimathie, Skeat, E.E.T.S., xliv. 

Cycle of Merlin (pp. 248-252) : — Merlin, G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 
S.A.T.F., P., 1S86 ; cf. Ward, i. 278 ; F. Lot, " Etudes sur Merlin," Annales 
de Bret., April, July 1900 ; Rom., xxxi. 473; L. A. Pat on, Radel. M., xiii. 
passim.— Merlin,^ . E. Mead, E.E.T.S., x., xxi., xxxvi., cxii.— H. Lovelich : 
Merlin, Kock, E.E.T.S., E.S., xciil— Arthour and Merlin, Abbot., 1838; 
P.F.MS., i. 417 ff. ; Kolbing, Leip., 1890; cf. Ellis, pp. 77 ff. 

Death of Arthur (pp. 253 258) : — Morte Arthure, E. Brock, E.E.T.S., 
viii. ; M. Banks, L., 1900. — Arthur, Furnivall, E.E.T.S., ii. 

Matter of England (pp. 258-282) : — On Waldef, Aelof, Horn et Rimen- 
hild, see above, p. 471. — King Horn, McKnight, E.E.T.S., xiv. ; J. Hall, 
Oxf., igoi.— Horn Childe, Ritson, ii. 216 ff. ; Caro, E. St., xii. 323 ff. ; Hall, 
I.e. — King Pontics, Mather, Pub. M.L.A., xii. 1897. — Hind Horn, Child, 
i. 187 ff. ; cf. Schofield, Pub. M.L.A., xviii. 1 ff. ; Rom., xxxiv. 142 note. — 
Havelok the Dane, Roxb., 1828 ; Skeat, E.E.T.S., E.S., iv. ; Holthausen, L., 
1901 ; re-ed. Skeat, Oxf., 1902; cf. above, p. 471. — Athelston, Rel. Ant., ii. 
85; Zupitza, E. St., xiii. 33 ff. — Guy of Warwick, Turnbull, Abbot., 1840; 
Zupitza, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxv., xxvi. ; E.E.T.S., E.S., xiii., xlix., lix. ; cf. 
Ellis, pp. 188 ff. ; Guy and Colebrande, P.F.MS., ii. 509; Guy and Phyllis, 
P.F. MS., ii. 201, 608 ff. ; Guye and Amarant, P.F.MS., iii. 36 ff. ; cf. above, 
p. 471.— Bevis of Hampton, Turnbull, Mait, 1838; Kolbing, E.E.T.S., 
E.S., xlvi., xlviii., lxv. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 239 ff. ; cf. above, p. 471. — Geste of 
Robin Hood, and other ballads on R. H., see Child, v. 39 ff. — Gamely n, 
Skeat, Oxf., 1884.— Adam Bell, etc., P.F.MS., iii. 76, and Child, ii. 14 ff — 
Rauf Coilyear, Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxix. ; Sc. T.S., 27 ; W. Hand- 
Browne, Baltimore, 1903. — Tanner of Tamworth, Child, v. 67 ff. — Miller of 
Mansfield, Child, v. 84 ff. ; P.F.MS., ii. 147 ff. ; Randulph, Erl of Chester, 
P.F.MS., 1258 S.—fohn de Reeve, P.F.MS., ii. 550 ff; cf. Child, v. 69-70. 

Matter of Antiquity (pp. 282-29S) : — Dares Phrygius, Meister, Leip., 
1S73. — Dictys Cretensis : Ephemerides Belli Trojani, Meister, Leip., 1872. 
— Benoit de Sainte-More, Roman de Troie, A. Joly, P., 1870-71 ; new ed. 
by L. Constans for S.A.T.F. in press.— Guido delle Colonne : Hist. Dest. 
Trojae, pr. Strassburg, 1494. — Sege of Troy, C. A. Wager, N.Y., 1899; 
Archiv, lxxii. 11. — Destruction of Troy, Panton and Donaldson, E.E.T.S., 
xxxix., W\.; Laud Troy Book, J. E. Wiilfing, E.E.T.S., cxxi.,cxxii.— Barbour : 
Troy Book, Horstmann (" Barbour's Legendensammlung," ii. 215), Heilbronn, 
1 88 1. — CaxtON : Rectiyell of the History es of Troye, repr. Sommer, L., 1894 ; 
cf. G. Hamilton, " Indebtedness of Chaucer's T. and C. to Guido," etc., N.Y., 

1903 J W. M. Rossetti, " Essays on Chaucer," Ch. S., 2 ser., 29. — Lydgate : 



478 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Romance of Thebes, Eng. Poets, i. 570 ff. ; Roman de Thebes, M. Constans, 
S.A.T.F., 1890.— Caxton : Eneydos, Culley and Furnivall, E.E.T.S., E.S., 
lvii. Cf. Rom., xxi. 281 ; Dernedde, " Ueber die altfranz. Dichtern bekannten 
epischen Stoffe aus der Altertum," Erlangen, 1887 ; H. O. Taylor, " Classical 
Heritage of the Middle Ages," N.Y., 1901 ; Hist. Litt., xxix. 455-525. 

Matter of the Orient (pp. 298-305) : — See, in general, P. Meyer, " Alex, 
le Grand dans la litt. franc, du moyen age," P., 1886 ; E. A. Wallis Budge, 
" Hist, of Alex, the Great," Camb., 1889 ; ibid. " Life and Exploits of Alex, 
the Great," L., 1896. — Alisaunder, Weber, i. 1 ff. — {Allit.) A lisaunder (frag- 
ments), Roxb., 1849; Skeat, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxi.— IVars of Alexander, 
Roxb., 1849; Skeat, E.E.T.S., E.S., xlvii. — Alexander Book, Laing, Bann., 
1831. — Prose Alexander, not printed; cf. Thorn. Roms., p. xxvi. — Sir 
Gilbert Hay: Buik of King Alexander, cf. Herrmann, "The Taymouth 
Castle MS. of Sir Gilbert Hay's Buik," etc., B., 1898 ; extracts in The Forraye 
off Gadderis, the Vowis, B., 1900. — On the Squire's Tale, see Skeat's ed. and 
Introd. ; cf. H. S. V. Jones, Pub. M.L.A., June 1905. — Merchant's Second 
Tale, or Tale of Beryn, Eng. Poets, i. 641 ff. ; Furnivall and Stone, Ch. S., 
2 ser. xvii., xxiv. — On the O.F. Berinus, see "Orient u. Occident," T. 
Benfey, Gottingen, 1864, ii. 310. 

Other Romances (pp. 305-319) : — Apollonius, King of Tyre, Ashbee, L., 
1870 ; cf. Twine : Patteme of Painefull Adventures, repr. New Rochelle, 
N.Y., 1903; cf. Gower, Confessio Amantis, G. C. Macaulay, L., 1900; for 
A.S. versions, see Archiv, xcvii. 17 ff. ; cf. E. Klebs, " Die Erzahlung von 
Apollonius aus Tyrus," B., 1899. — Floris and Blaunchejlur, Laing, Abbot. 
(Auch. MS. sel.), 1829; Hausknecht {Sammlung engl. Denhnaler, v.), B., 
1885 ; McKnight, E.E.T.S., xiv. ; cf. Ellis, pp/453 ff. ; Rom., xxviii. 348, 444. 
— Partonope of Blois, Roxb., 1862, 1873; cf. E. Kolbing, "Beit, zur vergl. 
Gesch. der romant. Poesie u. Prosa des Mittelalters," Breslau, 1876. — Sir 
Degrevant, Camd., 1844. — The Squyr of Lowe Degre, Ritson, iii. 138 ff. ; 
Hazlitt, Rem., ii. 21 ff. ; W. E. Mead, Boston, 1904. — Ipomedon, Kolbing, 
Breslau, 1899; Weber, ii. 279; cf. Ellis, pp. 505 ff.; above, p. 471. — Roswall 
and Lillian, Laing, Edin., 1822; Early Metr. Tales, 1826, pp. 265 ff. ; O. 
Lengert, Leip., 1892; cf. Ellis, pp. 578 ff. — Sir Generides, Furnivall, Roxb., 
1865; Wright, E.E.T.S., lv., lxx.— Amis and Amiloun, Weber, ii. 367 ff. ; 
Kolbing, Heilbronn, 1884; cf. Ellis, pp. 584 ff. — Octavian Imperator, Weber, 
iii. 155 ff. ; Sarrazin, Heilbronn, 1885. — Octavian, Halliwell, Percy S., 1844; 
Sarrazin, Heilbronn, 1885. — Sir Triamour, Utterson, Early Pop. Poetry, i. 
5 ff., L, 1825 ; Halliwell, Percy S., 1846; P.F.MS., ii. 78 ff. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 
491 ff. — Le Bone Florence, Ritson, iii. 46 ; W. Vietor, Marburg, 1893, 2nd ed. 
1899.— William of Palerne, Madden, Roxb., 1832 ; Skeat, E.E.T.S., E.S., i. ; 
cf. M. Trautmann, " Alteng. allit. Gedichte," Halle, 1876; Rom., vii. 470 ff., 
viii. 627. — King of Tars, Ritson, ii. 147 ff. ; E. St., xi. 1 ff. — Torrent of 
Portyngale, E. Adam, E.E.T.S., E.S., li.; Halliwell, L, 1842.— Sir E glamour 
of Artois, Thorn. Roms., 1844; G. Schleich, B., 1901. — Sir Lsumbras, 
Utterson, i. 73; cf. Ellis, pp. 497 ff. ; G. H. Gerould, Pub. M.L.A., 1905.— 



APPENDIX II 479 



Robert of Cysille, Hazlitt Rem., 1864, i. 264 ff. ; Horstmann, 1878, pp. 209 ff. ; 
cf. Ellis, pp. 474 ff. — Siege of Jerusalem (to be ed. Kaluza). — Vengeaunce of 
Goddes Deth, or Siege of 'Jerusale?u (to be ed. Bergau) ; cf. F. Bergau, " Unter- 
suchungen," etc., Konigsberg, 1901. — Godeffroy of Boloyne, Colvin, E.E.T.S., 
E.S., lxiv.— Chevelere Assigne, Gibbs, E.E.T.S., E.S., vi.—Helyas, Thorns, 
iii. 1 tt.—Melusine, Donald, E.E.T.S., E.S., lxviii. — Partenay, Skeat, 
E.E.T.S., xxii. (rev. 1899), Archiv, cvii. 106 ff. — Richard Coer de Lion, 
Weber, ii. 1 ff. ; cf. Ellis, pp. 282 ff. ; above, p. 471. — Parlement of the Three 
Ages, Gollancz, Roxb., L., 1897. — Ballet of the Nine Nobles, Laing, 
E. Pop. Scot. Poetry, Edin., 1822, pp. 2 ff. ; Craigie, Anglia, xxi. 359-65. — 
For the Nine Worthies, cf. " Buik of Alexander," Laing, Edin., 1831. — 
Barbour ■ Bruce, Skeat, E.E.T.S., E.S., xi., xxi., xxix., lv. ; Sc. T.S., xxxi.- 
xxxiii. — Blanchardyn, Kellner, E.E.T.S., E.S., lviii. — Clariodus, Mait., 1830. 
— Valentine and Orson, L., 1571. — Paris and Vienne, facsimile of the Caxton 
ed. of 1488, Roxb. Lib., L., 1868.— Arthur of Little Britain, Utterson, L., 
1814. — For other romances, see Thorns, 3 vols. 



CHAPTER VI.— TALES (pp. 320-348) 

Oriental Tales (pp. 321-323) :— On Chaucer's Tales, see F. J. Furnivall, 
E. Brock, and W. A. Clouston : "Originals and Analogues," etc., Ch. S., 2 
ser., vii., x., xv., xx., xxii. ; Introd. to Tales in Skeat's edition, vol. vi., L., 
1894 ; on Pardoner's Tale, see Canby, Modern Philology, Chicago, ii. 477 ff. 
— Datne Sirith, Matzner, i. 103 ff. ; Wright, A.L., L., 1844; cf. E. St., 
v. 378. — Interludhim de Clerico et Puella, Rel. Ant., i. 145 ff. — Wright's 
Chaste Wife, Furnivall, E.E.T.S., xii. ; A. Clouston in Introd. to this volume ; 
Child, i. 257 ff. — Sir Amadace, Weber, iii. 241 ; Robson, pp. 27-56 ; G. 
Stephens, Copenh., i860 ; cf. Rom., xviii. 197. — Sir Cleges, Weber, iii. 329 ff. ; 
tr. J. L. Weston, N.Y., 1902. 

Fabliaux, etc. (pp. 323-326) : — See J. Bedier, " Les Fabliaux," 2 e ed., P., 
1895; Petit de Julleville, Histoire, ii., ch. 2; cf. Rom., xxiv. 135. — Land of 
Cokaygne, Matzner, i. 147 ; Furnivall, pp. 156 ff. ; T. Wright, " Altd. Blattern," 
i. 396. — Penniworth of Witt e, Laing, 1857; Kolbing, E. St., vii. in. — How 
a Merchant dyd hys Wyfe betray, Kolbing, E. St., vii. 118 ff. ; Ritson, "Anc. 
Pop. Poetry," L., 1833, pp. 67 ff. ; Hazlitt Rem., i. 193 ff. ; cf. Barbazan, 
"Fabliaux," P., 1808, iii. (La Bourse pleine de Sens). — Alery Jest of the 
Mylner cf Abington, Hazlitt Rem., iii. 98 ff. ; Wright, A. L., pp. 105 ff. ; cf. 
Varnhagen, E. St., ix. 246. — The Frere and the Boye, Hazlitt, Rem., iii. 54 ff. ; 
P.F.MS., " Loose Songs," pp. 9 ff. ; Halliwell, " Early English Miscellanies," 
L., 1855, pp. 46 ff. ; Wright, L., 1836. — How a Sergeaunt wolde lerne to be a 
Frere, Hazlitt, Rem., iii. 119 ff. — Dan Hugh Monk, Hazlitt, Rem., iii. 130. — 
Plowman's. Paternoster, Hazlitt, Rem., i. 209 ff. ; cf. Anglia, ii. 388. — The 
Basin, Rem., iii. 42 ff. — Tournament of Totenham, Rem., iii. 82 ff. — Felone 
Sowe, etc., Robson, pp. 105 ff. ; Evans, " Old Ballads," L., 1810, iii. 270 ff. ; 
cf. Colkelbie Sow, Laing, 1895, i. 183 ff. — Huntyng of the Hare, Weber, iii. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



277 ff.— A Hundred Merry Tales, W. C. Hazlitt, L., 1887 
Jestbook, S. Singer, L., 18 14- 15. 

Pious Tales (pp. 326-330): — Miracles of Our Lady, Morris, E.E.T.S., 
xcviii. 138 ff. ; Archiv, lvi. 221 ff. — On Sir Hugh, cf. Child, iii. 223 ff. ; 
Hume, "Sir Hugh," etc., L, 1849; J. Jacobs, "Jewish Ideals," etc., L, 
1896. — How Oure Leuedi Psauter was founde, Horstmann, 1881, pp. 499 ff. — 
Good Knight and Jealous Wife, Horstmann, 1881, pp. 329 ff. — De Mir. Beat. 
Mar., Horstmann, 1881, pp. 502 ff. — The Eremyt and the Outelawe, Kaluza 
E. St., xiv. 165 ff. ; cf. also xix. 177 ff. ; cf. Le Chevalier au Barizel, Barbazan, 
"Fabliaux," 1808, i. 208-42. — Incestuous Daughter, Horstmann, 1881, pp. 
334. ff. ; Archiv, lxxix. 421 ff. ; cf. lxxxii. 204 ff. — The Childe of Bristowe, 
Hazlitt Rem., i. no; Horstmann, 1881, pp. 315 ff. ; cf. The Merchant 
and his Son, Rem., i. 132 ; Halliwell, "Nugee Poet.," 1844, pp. 21 ff. — The 
Smyth and his Dame, Rem., iii. 201 ff. — The Gast of Gy, G. Schleich, B., 1898. 

Beast-Fables, Beast-Epics, and Bestiaries (pp. 330-337) -.—Jatakas, 
V. Fausboll, 7 vols., L., 1877-97 ; Tales from Pali, tr. R. Morris, 1888; E. B. 
Cowell, Can-ib., 1895. — Bidpai : Fables, S. de Sacy, P., 1819; tr. J. Jacobs, 
L., 1888, 2 vols. — Panchatantra, Kielhorn and Buehler, 5 pts. , Bombay, 1869; 
Fr. tr. A. Dubois, P., 1826.— For Avianus, Phaedrus, Odo, etc., see 
Hervieux, " Fabulistes Latins, "^etc, P., 1884-89, 5 vols, (i., ii. Phsedrus ; iii. 
Avianus ; iv. Odo) ; cf. O. Keller, Jahrb. f. classische Phil., 1862, Leip., Suppl., 
vol. iv. 307-448. — For Marie de France, see above, p. 472. — Lydgate: 
sEsop(A.), P. Sauerstein, Anglia, ix. 1 ff. : (B), Archiv, lxxxv. 1 ff. — Holland : 
Buke of the Howlate, Laing, Edin., 1823 ; A. Diebler, Chemnitz, 1893. — 
Henryson : The Moral Fables of sEsop, Laing, Edin., 1865; Sibbald, i. 90, 
94, 100, 101 ff. ; Diebler, Anglia, ix. 337, 453 ; cf. Diebler, " Henryson's 
Fabeldichtungen," Halle, 1885.— Caxton : ^Esop, J. Jacobs, L, 1889. 

Romance of Reynard the Fox: — Netherlandish, E. Martin, Pader- 
born, 1876; French, Le Roman de Renart, Potvin, P., 1891 ; German, 
Reinhart Fuchs, J. Grimm, B., 1834 ; Goethe, Reineke Fuchs, Munich, 1846 ; 
cf. E. Voigt, " Isengrimus," Halle, 1884 ; L. Sudre, " Les Sources du R. de 
R.," P., 1892; Petit de Julleville, ii. ch. 1; Caxton, ed. Arber, L., 1878, 
No. 1 ; E. Goldsmid, Edin., 1884 ; mod. H. Morley, Carisbrooke Lib., iv., L., 
1889, pp. 43-166. — The Fox and the Wolf, M'atzner, i. 130 ; Rel. Ant., ii. 272 ; 
Percy S., viii., xvi.-xxxi., 1843; on Chaucer's Hun's Priest's Tale, see K. O. 
Petersen, Radcl. M., x., Boston, 1898. 

Physiologus : — For the Latin text and the French prose and rhymed 
versions, see Cahier, "Melanges d'Archeologie," 1S51, ii. 85-100, 186-232, 
iii. 203-288, iv. 55-87 ; cf. F. Lauchert, " Gesch. des Physiologus," Strassburg; 
1889. — Anglo-Saxon poems of Panther and Whale, Grein-Wiilcker, " Bibl. der 
angelsachs. Poesie," iii. 164-70. — Bestiary, Matzner, i. 55 ; cf. Anglia, ix. 
391; Lauchert, 1887; Rel. Ant., i. 208 ff. ; Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. ; cf. 
Anglia, Beibl., 10, 274 ff. ; above, p. 473 (Bestiaire). 

Collections (pp. 337-348) : — Gesta Romanorum, Latin texts, Oesterley, 
B., 1872; English texts, Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., xxxiii. ; Madden, Roxb., 



APPENDIX II 481 



1838.— Cf. Latin Stories, Percy S., 1842. — On Chaucer and Boccaccio, 
see Skeat's Chaucer. — Lydgate : Falls of Princes, cf. Koeppel, "Zwei 
Bearbeitungen Boccaccio's De Casibus," Munich, 1885. — Mirrour for 
Magistrates, J. Haslewood, C, 1875, 2 vols.— JACQUES DE VlTRY : Exempla, 
T. F. Crane, Folklore Soc, 1890, xxvi. — Etienne de Bourbon: Liber de 
Septem Donis, Lecoy de la Marche, P., 1877. — Bromyard : Summa Predi- 
cantium, 1518. — Holcot : Super Libros Sapientia, Reutlingen, 1489. — 
Robert Mannyng of Brunne ; see below, p. 484. — Gower : Confessio 
Amantis, Macaulay, E.E.T.S., E.S., lxxxi., lxxxii. ; same, Oxf., 1901, vols, ii., 
iii. ; Selections, Macaulay, Oxf., 1903. — Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry, 
Wright, E.E.T.S., xxxiii. ; Fr. orig., Montaiglon, P., 1884. — Seven Sages, 
Wright, Percy S., 1846; Gomme, Wynkyn de Worde's version, L., 1885; 
Weber, iii. 3 ff. ; cf. Ellis, 405 ff. ; Varnhagen, E. St., xxv. 321-25 (Scottish 
version) ; Napier, Pub. M.L.A., xiv. 459 ff. — For fuller bibliography, see K. 
Campbell, " Seven Sages," Baltimore, 1898 ; new ed. in press, Albion Series, 
Boston. —Painter : Palace of Pleasure, J. Haslewood, L., 1S13 ; J. Jacobs, 
L., 1890. — Heptameron, Soc. des Bibliophiles franc., 1853. 

CHAPTER VII.— HISTORICAL WORKS (pp. 349"373) 

On the Chronicles (pp. 349-363), see C. Gross, "Sources and Lit. of 
Eng. Hist.," L. and N.Y., 1900, passim. — Layamon : Brut, Madden, L., 
1847. — Robert of Gloucester, Chronicle, A. Wright, Rolls Series, L., 1887; 
cf. Anglia, x. 308, xiii. 202; Archiv, lxxxvii. 217. — Thos. Bek OF 
Castelford : Chronicle, cf. Perrin, Gottingen, 1890 (in prep, for 
E.E.T.S.). — Rhymed Chronicle of England, Ritson, iii. 18; cf. E. St., xv. 
249. — Robert Mannyng of Brunne : The Story of England, Zetsche, 
Anglia, ix. 43 ; Hearne, 1725; Furnivall, Rolls Series, L., 1887. — John de 
Trevisa : tr. of Polychronicon, Babington, Rolls Series, L., 1S65. — For 
editions of the following see the numbers in Gross : — John Hardyng, 
Chronicle, No. 1787 ; John Capgrave, Chronicle, No. 1731 ; John 
Fordun, Scotichronicon, No. 1775 ; Andrew of Wyntoun, Chronykil of 
Scotland, No. 1869. 

Political Poems (pp. 363-368) :— For Songs on Berwick and Bannock- 
burn, etc., cf. Fabyan, New Chronicle, Ellis, L., 181 1. — Pers de Lang- 
toft : Wright, P.S., pp. 2S6, 293, 295-96, 298, 303, 307, 318. — Song against 
the King of Almaigne, Percy, " Reliques," ii. 1 (Tauchnitz ed. ) ; Ritson, A.S., 
12-13; Wright, p. 69; Boddeker, A.D., pp. 98 ff. ; Matzner, i. 152. — Song 
on the Flemish Lnsurrection, Wright, pp. 187 ff. ; Boddeker, pp. 112 ff. ; 
Hazlitt, pp. 44 ff. — Execution of Sir Simon Eraser, Boddeker, p. 12 ; 
Wright, p. 212 ; Ritson, A.S., pp. 25 ff. — King's breaking of Magna Charta, 
Wright, pp. 253 ff. — Lawrence Minot : Ballads, J. Hall, 1897 ; W. 
Scholle, Strassburg, 1884; Ritson, L., 1825. — Adam Davy: Five Dreams 
about Edward LI., Furnivall, E.E.T.S., lxix. 11-16. — Thos. of Ercel- 
DOUNE : Prophecy, Brandl., B., 1880; Rel. Ant., i. 30 ff. ; Murray, E.E.T.S., 

2 I 



482 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

lxi. (t; texts\ — On Banister, see Ritson, " Bibliographica Poetica," L., 
1802, p. 17. — On Here Prophecy, see H. Morley, " Eng. Writers," iii. 200, L., 
1888.— Cf. Wright, P.P. 

Satires (pp. 368-373) : — Song of Husbandmen, Wright, P.S., pp. 149 ff. ; 
Boddeker, pp. 100 ff. -.—Retinues of Great People, Wright, pp. 237 ff. ; also 
pp. 153 ff. ; Boddeker, pp. 106 ff, 135 ff. — Nego, Wright, pp. 210 ff. — 
Hwon holy chirche is under fote, Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. 89 ff. — Evil Times 
of Edw. II., Wright, pp. 323 ff. — Winner and Waster, Gollancz, in " Parle- 
ment of Three Ages," L, 1897.— Syr Peny (A.), Rel. Ant., ii. 1 08 ; Hazlitt 
Rem., i. 159 ff. ; (B.), Ritson, A.S., pp. 115 ff. ; Wright, "Poems of W. 
Mapes," Camd., L., 1841, pp. 359 ff. — Why I cannot be a Nun, Furnivall, 
Philol. Soc, 1S62, pp. 138 ff— Satire on the People of Kildare, Rel. Ant., 
ii. 174 ff. ; cf. W. Heuser, "Kildare Gedichte," Bonn, 1904. — For other 
satirical poems and songs, see Fairholt, "Sat. Poems," Percy S., xxvii. ; 
Wright; Rel. Ant. 

CHAPTER VIII.— RELIGIOUS WORKS (pp. 374-417) 

Gospels, tr. from W. Saxon, Skeat, Camb., 1871-87. — Early English Psalter, 
Biilbring, E.E.T.S., xcvii. ; Stevenson, Surtees.Soc, 1844. — Story of Genesis 
and Exodus, Morris, E.E.T.S., vii. ; cf. Anglia, vi., Anz., 1; E. St., viii. 
273 ; extr. in Matzner, i. 75 ff. ; Anglia, v. 43 ; Archiv, cvii. 387-92. — On 
Comestor : Historia Scholastica ; cf. Gaster, " Ilchester Lectures," L., 1887, 
Appendix A. — Cursor Mundi, R. Morris, E.E.T.S., lvii., lxix.-lxii., lxvi. , Ixviii. , 
xcix., ci.; cf. Anglia, xiii., Mitt., 133; Eng. St., xi. 235 ff. ; Hupe, "Cursor 
Studies," E.E.T.S., lvii. — Assumptio Mariae, Lumby, E.E.T.S., xiv., xliv. ; 
cf. E. St., vii. I ff — Other forms E.E.T.S., xiv. 75, no; E. St., viii. 
227 ff, 461 ff. ; Furnivall, B., 1862. — Birth of Jesus, Horstmann, 1875, pp. 
64 ff. ; see also Horstmann, pp. 101, in, 161, 349 ff ; for the Infancy of 
Christ, cf. E.E.T.S., cxvii. 637 ff. ; E. St., ii. 117 ff. ; Archiv, lxxiv. 327, 
lxxxii. 167, lxxix. \\\.— Judas, Rel. Ant., i. 144; Child, i. 242-44; Matzner, 
i. 113. — Cleanness and Patience, R. Morris, E.E.T.S., i. 38, 92 ff. 

Homilies (pp. 379-389) ; — Aelfric : Homilies, R. Morris, E.E.T.S., xxix., 
xxxiv. — Hali Meidenhad, O. Cockayne, E. E.T.S., xviii.- — Sermon against 
Miracle- Plays, Matzner, ii. 222 ff. ; Rel. Ant. ii. 42 ff. — John Wycliffe : 
Tracts and Treatises, etc., R. Vaughan, L.,1845 ; " Life of Wycliffe," L., 182S ; 
" Select Eng. Works," T. Arnold, Oxf., 1871 ; F. Matthew, E.E.T.S., lxxiv. 

Poe?na Morale, Furnivall; Morris, E.E.T.S., xxxiv., xlix., liii. ; Zupitza, 
Anglia, i. 6 ff, iii. 32 ff. ; crit. ed. Lewin, Halle, 1881. — Ormulum, R. M. 
White, L., 1852; re-ed. R. Holt, Oxf., 1878, 2 vols. ; cf. E. St., i. 1, vi. 1-27. 
— Old Kentish Ser?nons, Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. pp. 26 ff. — Old English 
Homilies, Morris, E.E.T.S., xxix., xxxiv. ; cf. W. Vollhardt, " Einfiuss der 
lat. geistl. Poesie," etc., Leip., 1888; English Metrical Homilies,']. Small, 
Edin., 1862 ; cf. G. Gerould, " Study of North Eng. Horn. Coll.," Oxf., 1902. 
— A lutel soth sermon, Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. pp. 1S6 ff. ; see the same for 



APPENDIX II 483 



other homilies mentioned. — A luytel tretys of Love, Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 
cxvii. — Hours of the Cross, Horstmann, E.E.T.S., cxviii. — Feastdays of the 
Church, Morris, E.E.T.S., xlvi. pp. 210 ff. — Lamentacio Sancti Bernardi, 
Kribel, E. St., viii. 85 ff.— Compassio Mariae, Napier, E.E.T.S., ciii. 75 ff. ; 
Archiv, lxxxviii. 181 ff. — Christ on the Cross, Furnivall, pp. 20-21 ; E.E.T.S., 
xv. 220 ff. — Verses for Palm Sunday, Rel. Ant., ii. 241 ff. — Of a mon motheu 
thohte, Boddeker, pp. 184 ff. ; Morris, " Specimens," ii. 46 ff. ; Wright, 
S.L.P., pp. 41 ff. — Paraphrase of Psalm I., Kolbing, E. St., ix. 49 ff. ; Abbot., 
1857. — XV Signs of Judgment, Stengel, Halle, 1871 ; Matzner, i. 120; P. B. 
Beit., vi. 413; Furnivall, pp. 7 ff. — Antichrist, etc., Morris, Ebert's Jahrb., 
v. 191 ff. ; cf. T. Wright, "Chester Plays," ii. 147 ff. — Anglia, iii. 534 ff. ; 
P. B. Beit., vi. 413 ff; E.E.T.S., lxix. 92 ff, xxiv. 118 ff; Signs of Death, etc., 
E.E.T.S., xlix. — Messengers of Death, E. St., xiv. 182 ff. ; Archiv, lxxix. 432 ; 
cf. Rel. Ant., i. 64-65.— XI Pains of Hell, E.E.T.S., xlix.; Archiv, lxii. 
403 ff. ; Percy S., xiv. 1844. — X Commandments, E.E. P., pp. 15-16 ; Archiv, 
civ. 302 ff. ; Rel. Ant., ii. 27 ff. ; E. St., i. 214 ff. — Seven Deadly Sins, Furnivall, 
pp. 17 ff ; E. St., ix. 42; Laing, "Poems from Auch. MS.," pp. Si ff. ; 
Ebert's Jahrb. vi. 332 ff. ; Rel. Ant., i. 136 ff. — Five Joys of the Virgin, 
E.E.T.S., xlix. 87 ff. ; Boddeker, 1881, pp. 218 ff. ; Wright, S.L.P., pp. 94 ff. 
— Friar Henry's luytel Sarmoun, E.E.T.S., cxvii. 476 ff. — Dan John 
Gaytryge's Sermon, E. St., vi. 416 ; E.E.T.S., xxvi. 1-14. — How to hear Mass, 
E.E.T.S., cxvii. 493 ff. 

Grosseteste: Chateau d' Amour, Cooke, Caxton Soc, 1852; Anglia, 
xii. 311 ff. ; E.E.T.S., xcviii. 407 ff. ; Weymouth, Philol. S., 1844.— 
Sawles Warde, Woohing of our Lord, Morris, E. E. T. S, , xxix. , pp. 245 ff. , 
268 ff. ; cf. E.E.T.S., xxiii. 263-69. — William of Shoreham : Poems, 
Wright, Percy S., 1849; Konrath, E.E.T.S., E.S., Ixxxvi.— Richard Rolle 
of Hampole: Perry, E.E.T.S., xx. ; cf. E. St., iii. 406, vii. 468 — Pricke 
of Conscience, Morris, B., 1S63 ; cf. Horstmann, "Yorkshire Writers," L., 
1895; E.E.T.S., cvi.— Psalter, H. R. Brand ey, Oxf., 1S84; cf. Anglia, viii., 
Anz., 170; xi. 326; cf. H. Middendorf, " Studien zu Rolle," etc., Magde- 
burg, 1888.— Nicholas of Hereford : Transl. of Psalms, Forshall and 
Madden, Oxf., 1850; cf. Korting, " Grundriss," p. 132. — Seven Psalms, Adler 
and Kaluza, E. St., x. 215 ff. — Xing Solomon's Book of Wisdom, Furnivall, 
E.E.T.S., lxix. 82-95. — King Solomon's Coronation, pp. 96 ff. — Lay Folks' 
Prayer Book, Littlehales, E.E.T.S., cv. — De Emendacione Vitae (tr. Misyn), 
R, Harvey, E.E.T.S., cvi. 

Legends and Lives of Saints (pp. 389-397): — See, in general, 
C. Horstmann, "The Early Eng. Legendary or Lives of Saints," E.E.T.S., 
lxxxvii. (57 Lives) ; cf. Anglia, xi. 543 : (Gloucestershire), Southern Legends, 
in Ae. Leg. 1875, xix., " Sammlung Ae. Leg.," 1878 (MS. Vernon, etc.); 
Northern Collection, "Ae. Leg., Neue P'olge," 1881, pp. 1-173 ; cf. E. St.,i. 
293-300. — Osbern Bokenham : Lives of Saints, Horstmann, Heilbronn, 
1S83 ; Roxb., 1835 ; cf. E. St., xii. 1 ff. ; cf. Horstmann, Uber Bokenham, etc., 
B., 1883. — Collections by O. Cockayne, E.E.T.S., xiii., Ii., " Narratiunculae," 



484 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

L., 1861. — Scottish Legends, Metcalfe, Scot. T.S., 1896, xiii. , xviii., xxiii., xxv., 
xxxv. -xxxvii. ; Horstmann, Heilbronn, 1881-82, 2 vols. — Legends from Bodl. 
779, Archiv, Ixxxii. 307 ff. ; cf. Anglia, viii. 102. — St. Dunstan, St. Thomas 
Beket, St. Christopher, etc., Matzner, i. 170 ff. — For Johannes Myrc, 
Festial, cf. Horstmann, 1S81, pp. cix.-cxxvii. 

Visions (pp. 397-403): — See, in general, E. Becker, "Medieval Visions of 
Heaven and Hell," Bait, 1899.— Visio St. Pauli, E.E.T.S., xlix. App., iii. ; 
E. St., i. 295 ff.; E.E.T.S., xcviii. 251 ff. ; Archiv, Hi. 33 ff. ; Kolbing, E. St., 
xxii. 134; cf. H. Brandes, "Visio St. Pauli," Halle, 1S85. — Vision of Tun- 
dale, Turnbull, Edin., 1843 ; A. Wagner, Halle, 1893. — Oweyn Miles, E. St., 
i. 113 ff., ix. 1 ff. ; D. Laing, Edin., 1837, pp. 13-54.— St. Patrick's Purga- 
tory, Horstmann, 1S75, 149-21 1 ; Kolbing, E. St., i. 57.; Abbot., 1837 ; cf. T. 
Wright, " St. P.'s Burg.," L., 1844 ; G. P. Krapp, " Legend of St. P.'s Purg.,' 5 
etc., Bait., 1900. — Monk of Evesham, Arber's Reprints, xviii. 1S61 ; (Lab 
text), M. Huber, Rom. Forsch, xvi. 641-734. — The Pearl, Morris, E.E.T.S., 
i. ; Gollancz, L., 1891 ; cf. C. F. Brown, Pub. M.L.A., xix. 115-53; w - H - 
Schofield, Pub. M.L.A., xix. 154-215. 

Books of Edification (pp. 403-417) : — Ancren Riwle, Morton, Camd., 
1853; Extracts in Matzner, ii. 5 ff. ; Napier, Journ. Germ. Phil., ii. 119; tr. 
King's Classics, 1905 ; cf. E. St., iii. 535 ff., ix. 115 ff. ; P. B. Beit., i. 209 ff. ; 
T. Miihe, "On A. R.," Gottingen, 1901. — Benedictine Rule for Nuns of 
Winteney, Hampshire, Schroer, Halle, 1888 ; cf. Gottingische Gelehrte 
Anzeigen, 1888, 1013; Rule of St. Benet, Boddeker, E. St., ii. 60; Koch, 
E.E.T.S., cxx. ; cf. Anglia, xiv. 302. — Dan Michel: Ayenbite of 
Luwyt, Roxb., 1835; Morris, E.E.T.S., xxiii.; cf. E. St., ii. 27 ff. ; R. W. 
Evers, " Ayenb. of Inwyt," etc., Erlangen, 1883. — On Chaucer, Parson's 
Tale, see K. O. Petersen, Rad. Mon., xii., Boston, 1901. — On Gower, see 
R. E. Fowler, " Une source franc, des poemes de Gower," Macon, 1905. — 
Robert Mannyng of Brunne : LLandlyng Synne, Furnivall, Roxb., 1862; 
same, E.E.T.S., cxix.— John Bonaventura : Meditations, J. M. Cowper, 
E.ET.S., Ix. — Johannes Myrc : Lnstruclions for Parish Priests, E. Peacock, 
E.E.T.S., xxxi. — Speciilum Humanae Salvationis, Huth, Roxb., 1S88 ; 
Mirror of St. Edmund, I. Perry, E.E.T.S., xxvi. 15 ff.— Prick or Spur of 
Love, E. E. T. S. , xcvii. p. 268 ; How a Man schal lyve parfytly, same, pp. 
221 ff. ; Myroure of Oure Ladye, Blunt, E.E.T.S., E.S., xix. — Orologium 
Sapientiae, Horstmann, Anglia, x. 323 ff. — Craft of Deying, etc., Lumby, 
E.E.T.S., 43. 

CHAPTER IX.— DIDACTIC WORKS (pp. 418-434) 

Proverbs and Precept Poems (pp. 418-424) : — Proverbs of King Alfred, 
Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. 102 ff. ; Rel. Ant., i. 170; cf. P. B. Beit, i. 240 ff. ; 
Anglia, iii. 370. — Kemble, "Dial, of Salomon and Saturn," L., 1848. — 
Early M.E. Proverbs, M. Forster, E. St., xxxi. 1 ff. ; Hendyng, Rel. Ant., i. 
109 ff. ; Matzner, i. 304 ff. ; Anglia, iv. 180, v. 5 ; Boddeker, 1878, pp. 285 5 



APPENDIX II 485 



Kemble, "Dialogue," etc., pp. 270. — King Salomon and Marcolf, E. Duff, 
L., 1892 (facs. of Antwerp, ed. 1492). — How the Wise Matt Taught his Son, 
R. Fischer, Erl. Beit, ii. 1 ff. ; E.E.T.S., xxxii. 48 ff. ; E.S., viii. '52 ff. ; 
Ritson, A.P.P., L., 1791, Hazlitt, i. 189; Eurnivall, Queen's Academy, L., 
1868, i. 48. — The Good Wyfe wold a Pylgremage, Furnivall, E.E.T.S., E.S., 
viii. 39-43. — How the Goode Wif Taught hir D ought er, Hazlitt, i. 178; 
E.E.T.S., xxxii. 36; E.S.,viii. 44 ff. ; cf. E.E.T.S., E.S., xxix. 511.— 
A B C of Aristotle, Strutt, "Sports and Pastimes," L., 1841 ; E.E.T.S., 
xxxii. 11-12 ; E.S., viii. 65, 66 ; Archiv, cv. 296. — A Man thad xidd of treeothe 
telle, Rel. Ant., ii. 165. — Cato, Nehab, B., 1879; cf. Anglia, iii. ^.—-Lytel 
Caton and Cato Major, Goldberg, Leip., 1883; Anglia, vii. 165; E.E.T.S., 
cxvii. 553 ff. — Disticha Catonis, tr. Benedict Burgh ; cf. M. O. Goldberg, 
Leip., 1S83, pp. 45, 49. — Caxton : Prose Cato, see Goldberg and Napier, 
Archiv, xcv. 163. — Proverbes of diverse Profetes, etc., E.E.T.S., cxvii. 522 ff. 
— Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, facs. Wm. Blades, L., 1877. — Sawe 
of St. Bede, Sayings of St. Bernard, E.E.T.S., cxvii. — De Cura Rei Familiaris, 
J. R. Lumby, E.E.T.S., xlii. — Pat is Paving, Poly of Fulys, etc., id., 
E.E.T.S., xliii. 

Dialogues and Debates (pp. 424-430) : — Vices and Virtues, F. Holthausen , 
E.E.T.S., Ixxxix. — Ypotis, Horstmann, 1881, pp. 341, 511 ff.; H. Gruber, 
If otis, B., 1887. — Disputation between Mary and the Cross, E.E.T.S., cxvii. 
612 ff. ; Morris, "Legends of the Holy Rood," E.E.T.S., xlvi. 131 ff. ; 
Archiv, cv. 22 ff. — Disputation between Child fhesu and Maistres of the lawe 
of /ewes, Horstmann, 1875, 212 ff. ; cf. xxvi. ; E.E.T.S., cxvii. 479 ff. — 
Dispute between a Good Man and tlie Devil, E. St., viii. 259 ff. ; E.E.T.S., 
xcviii. 329 ff. ; Between a cristenemon and a Jew, Horstmann, 1 878, 204 ; 
E.E.T.S., cxvii. 484. — Debate of the Body and Soul, see T. Wright, "Latin 
Poems attrib. to Walter Mapes," Camd., 1841, pp. 95, 321 ff. ; M.E. versions, 
Miitzner, i. 90 ff. ; Linow, Erl. Beit., i. 25 ff. ; Boddeker, 1881, 235 ff. ; 
Stengel, "MS. Digby 86"; cf. Anglia, ii. 225 ff.— Vision of Philibert, etc., 
Warton Club, 1855, 12-39; mod. rendering, F. W. Child, Camb., 1888.— 
Owl and Nightingale, Stevenson, Roxb., 1838; Wright, Percy S., 1843; 
Stratmann, Krefeld, 1878 ; cf. Noelle, " Sprache, etc.," Gottingen, 1870 ; extr. 
in Matzner, i. 40 ff. — The Thrush and the Nightingale, Rel. Ant., i. 241 ff. ; 
Hazlitt, i. 50 ff. ; cf. Anglia, iv. 207. — The Carpenter's Tools, J. O. Halliwell, 
"Nugae Poet.," L, 1844, pp. 13 ff. ; Hazlitt, i. 79. 

Books of Instruction and Utility (pp. 430-434): — Book of Curtesy, 
Furnivall, E.E.T.S., E.S., iii.; K. Breul, E. St., ix. 51 ff. ; E.E.T.S., xxxii. 
77 ff. ; Halliwell, Percy S., iv. 1842. — Lydgate : Stans Puer ad Mensam, 
Babees Book, etc., Furnivall, E.E.T.S., xxxii.; E.E.T.S., E.S., viii.; cf. 
Burhenne, "Stans Puer," etc., Hersfeld, 1889, pp. 16 ff. — Questiones bytwene 
the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerk, Horstmann, E. St., viii. 284 ff. ; 
Wtilcker, A.E.L., ii. 191. — Lydgate : Secrees of Old Philisoffres, R. Steele, 
E.E.T.S., E.S., lxvi.— Occleve : De Regimine Principum, T. Wright, L., 
i860; Furnivall, E.E.T.S., E.S., lxi. ; cf..F. Aster, " De Reg. Prin.," etc., 



486 ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Leip., 1888. — See numerous pieces in Rel. Ant., passim. — Lanfranc : 
Science of Cirurgie, von Fleischhacker, E.E.T.S., cii. — Influence of the 
Planets, Hahn, Archiv, cvi. 351 ff. — Medical Poems, Holthausen, Anglia, 
xviii. 293 ff. ; Archaeol., 1844, 349 ff. — Receipts, Holthausen, Anglia, xix. 75. 
— Herbarium Apuleii, H. Berberich, Heidelberg, 1902. — Advice to Travellers, 
Horstmann, E. St. , viii. 27J.— Stations of Rome, Furnivall, E.E.T.S., xxv. 
I ff., 30 ff. — Fragment on Popidar Science, T. Wright, "Pop. Treatises on 
Science," L.., 1841 ; Matzner, i. 136 ff. — Bartholomeus Anglicus, De Pro- 
prietatibus Rerum, tr. John de Trevisa : W. de Worde, 149 1 ; Berthelet, 
1535; Batman, 1582; extracts in R. Steele, "Mediaeval Lore," L., 1893. 



CHAPTER X.— SONGS AND LYRICS (pp. 435-450) 

Religious and Didactic (pp. 435 ff.) : — Canttis Beati Godrici, Zupitza, 
E.St., xi. 423. — A Good Orison of Our Lady, R. Morris, E.E.T.S., xxxiv. 
191 ff— Blessed be thu levedi, Morris, E.E.T.S., xlix. 195 ff. ; Rel. Ant., 
i. 102 ff. ; Boddeker, pp. 215 ff. ; Wright, S.L.P., pp. 93 ff. ; Matzner, 
i- 53-55- — Other songs mentioned in the text and many others are found 
in Boddeker (MS. Harl. 2253); Rel. Ant.; Matzner; Wright, S.L.P. ; 
Morris, E.E.T.Sl, xlix.; Horstmann, E.E.T.S., xcviii. (Vernon MS.); 
Furnivall, E.E.T.S., cxvii. ; Furnivall, E.E.T.S., xxiv. ; Morris, E.E.T.S., 
liii. 255 ff. ; Furnivall, E.E.P. ; M. Jacoby, " Vier M.E. Dicht.," B., 1890; 
J. Hall, E. St., xxi. 201 ff. ; Varnhagen, Anglia, vii. 282 ff, iii. 275 ff, 
ii. 352 ff. ; G. G. Perry, E.E.T.S., xxvi. 75 ff. ; Napier, Mod. L.N., iv. 274 ff. ; 
Furnivall, Archiv, xcvii. 307 ff. 

Secular: — See Boddeker; Wright, S.L.P. ; Ritson, A.S. ; for the lyrics 
mentioned. — Some are found in the "Oxford Book of Eng. Verse," A. T. 
Quiller-Couch, Oxf. , 1904. — Ageyn mi wille I take my leve, Varnhagen, 
Anglia, vii. 289. — In Praise of Women, Kolbing, E. St., vii. 101 ff. ; cf. 
viii. 394; Laing, Auch. MS., Abbot, 1857, pp. 107 ff. ; Rel. Ant., passim. 



INDEX 



ABC (Chaucer), 377 

ABC of Aristotle, 422 

Abelard, Peter, 48, 50, 52, 67, 93 

Adam, 136 

Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and 

William of Cloudesly, 279 
Adam de la Halle, 96 
Adam du Petit Pont, 53 
Adam of Evesham, 401 
Adam of St. Victor, 65 
Addison, 449 
Adenet le Roi, 304 
Adgar, 118 

Aelof, 31, 258, 260, 264 
sEneid, 297 
Aesculapius, 92 
iEsop, 118, 331 
Aesopus, 332 
Ailred, St., de Rievaulx, 36, 359, 362, 

409 
Alain de l'Isle, 76. 
Alberic de Briancon, 299 
Albertano of Brescia, jj 
Albertus Magnus, 81, 82, 87, 88, 104 
Alban, St., Life of, 131 
Albin, St., 350, 351 
Alcuin, 17, 49 

Aldhelm, St., of Salisbury, 16, 18 
Aldingar, Sir, 200 
Alexander II., Pope, 26 
Alexander of Hales, 81, 104 
Alexander Neckham, 61, 62, 88, 336 
Alexander the Great, jj, 298-304 
Alexander the Great, Bulk of, 303, 

Alexandre de Bernay, 300, 303 

Alexandreid, jj 

Alexis, St., Life of, 393 

Alfaragan, 91 

Alfred, King, 143, 144, 418, 430 



Alvred of Beverley, 120 

Alysoufi, 444-445 

Amadace, Sir, 322 

Amadas et Ydoine, 117, 375 

Ambrose, 125 

A?nis and Amiloun, 15, 233, 309 

Amis et Amiles, 309 

Ancren Riwle, 71, 97, 381, 385, 403- 

408, 5:6 
Andre de Coutances, 119 
Angier, 132 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 29, 32, 45, 

114, 121, 255, 266, 350 
Anima, De, 386 
Annales Sex Regunt Angliae, 43 
Annals of Winchester, 359 
Anselm, St., 28, 32, 33, 48, 51, 64, 

69, 130, 405 ; Life of, 34 
Antic laudianus, 76 
Antiquary, The, 91 
Apocalypse of Golias, 58, 402 
Apocalypse of St. John, 129 
Apocalypse of St. Peter, 399 
Apollonius of Tyre, 306 
Arabian Nights, 321 
Arcadia, 67 
Architrenius, 60-61 
Aristotle, 33, 49, 52, 81, 82, 92, 94, 

100, 422, 432, 433 
Arnold, Matthew, 162, 214 
Arnold of the Newe Toun, 92 
Ars Metrica (Bede), 75 
Ars Rhythmica (Garlandia), 74 
Art of English Poesie, 140 
Arthur, 5, 70, 116, 117, 137, 145, 147, 

i5 2 . I S7. iS 8 -^, 179. !97. I9 8 . 

211, 214, 215, 253, 258, 352 
Arthur, 255 

Arthur and Merlin, 15, 251, 300, 314 
Arthur of Little Britain, 318 



487 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Arts and Discipline of Liberal Learn- 
ing, 49 

Arviragus, King, Life of, 194 

Arviragus, Lay of, 180, 195-196 

As You Like It, 280 

Ascham, Roger, 247 

Asser, 35, 276 

Assumption of Our Lady, 376 

Astrolabe, 432 

Athelard (Adelard) of Bath, 61, 63, 64 

Aucassin et Nicolete, 23, 93, 307 

Auchinleck MS., 14, 81, 153, 181, 
3 2 5. 33°. 370, 400 

Audelay, John, 399 

Augustine, St., 17, 49, 101, 121, 351, 
405 

Aurora, 76 

Ave Maria, 130, 449 

Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 81, 93 

Avianus, 331, 332 

Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 81, 92, 93 

Avowing of King Arthur, etc., 222- 
223 

Avows of Alexander, 303 

Awntyrs of Arthur at the Tarn Wad- 
ling, 218-220 

Ayenbite of Inwyt, 142, 386, 409, 413, 
416 

Babrius, 331 

Bacon, Francis, 109 

Bacon, Roger, 10, 29, 80, 83, 86-88, 

92, 104, 433 
Baldwin, Archbishop, 40, 56, 66, 341 
Bale, 109 
Bandello, 347 
Banister, William, 368 
Barbour, John, 20, 155, 290, 303, 

317. 327, 332, 394. 395 
Barclay, 109 

Barlaam et Josaphaz, 118, 131 
Bartholomasus Anglicus, 12, 56, 92, 

432 
Battle of the Standard, 36 
Beauty of Ribbesdale, 446 
Becket, Thomas a, 49, 51, 53, 55, 

56, 66, 124, 131, 234 
Bede, St., 35, 49, 75, 350, 351, 362, 

398 
Bek, Thomas, 361 

Bel Inconnu, Le, 176, 227, 242, 307 
Bella Trojano, De, 66, 289 
Benedict, St. (Benet), Rule of, 408-409 
Benedict of Peterborough, 42 



Benolt, 122, 124 

Benoit de Ste. More, 122, 287-288, 

289, 290, 291, 292, 295 
Biowulf, 23, 31 
Berachyah Nakdan, 64 
Bernard, St., of Clairvaux, 51, 52, 

405. 424 
Bernard de Ventadour, 68 
Bernard of Cluny, 65 
Berners, Lord, 157 
BeYoul, 202, 203 
Bertran de Born, 68 
Bertran de Born, the younger, 68 
Beryn, Tale of, 322 
Bestiaire, 132, 336 
Bestiary, 336 
Beves, 73, 258 
Beves of Hampton, 15, 31, 260, 271, 

.274. 275. 3" 
Biquet, Robert, 116, 180, 197 
Birth of Jesus, 377 
Bispel, A, 386 
Black Prince, Li'e of, 126 
Blancandin et V Orgueilleuse d' Amour, 

3i8 
Blaneford, 45 

Blauncheflour et Florence, De, 135 
Bleheris (Bledhericus), 70, 116, 215 
Blind Harry, 304 
Boccaccio, 77, 100, 193, 200, 291, 

292, 293, 295, 296, 325, 340, 341, 

34 6 . 347 
Bochas, 388 
Bodel, Jean, 145, 248 
Body and the Soul, Debate of, 15, 401, 

426-427, 429, 448 
Boece, Hector, 257 
Boethius, 49, 76, 101, 430 
Boeve de Hamto?ie, 117 
Bokenham, Osbern, 395 
Bonaventura, 83, 104 
Bone Flo7-ence de Rome, La, 313 
Bonti des Femmes, La, 129 
Book of Duke Huon de Bordeaux, 157 
Book of Hymns, 31 
Book of Leinster, 31 
Book of Settlements, 31 
Book of Sidrac, 133 
Book of the Dun Cow, 31 
Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landri, 

343-344 
Book Ryal, 409 
Bourchier, Sir John, 157 
Boy a?id the Mantle, 197-198 



INDEX 



489 



Bozon, Nicole, 118 

Bradwardine, Thomas, 100, 101, 

104 
Bramis of Thetford, John, 260 
Breakspeare, Nicholas, 73 
Bren, 116 

Bricriu's Feast, 217 
Bromyard, John, 342 
Brooke, Stopford, 419 
Broomfield Hill, 200 
Brown, Thomas, 53 
Bruce, 155, 290, 332 
Brut, 25, 39, 114, 351-358, 361, 451 
Brutes, 127 
Brykholle, 135 
Buddha, 118 
Buke of the Hoivlate, 332 
Bunyan, John, 403 
Burgh, Benedict, 423, 432 
Burleigh, Walter, 100, 101, 104 
Burncl the Asse, Daun, 60 
Bury. See Richard of Bury 

Casdmon, 375, 436 

Calderon, 401 

Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 92, 347 

Canterbury Tales, 92, 292, 321, 322, 

33 8 . 347- See Chaucer 
Cantilenae, 148 
Capgrave, John, 109, 363, 395 
Carl 0/ Carlisle, 218, 222 
Carlyle, Thomas, 43 
Carpenter's Tools, Debate of, 430 
Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illus- 

trium, De, 340, 341 
Cassiodorus, 49 
Castiglione, 431 
Castle of Love, 386 
Catherine, St., Life of, 131, 390 
Causa Dei contra Pelagium, De, loix 
Cawline, Sir, 200 

Caxton, 45, 127, 140, 155, 156, 157, 
'236, 257, 290, 297, 316, 332, 344, 

395, 409, 423 
Cecilia, St. , Life of, 390 
Cento Novelli Antiche, 347 
Chanson de Roland, 25/146, 149-151 
Chansons de geste, 31, 123, 130, 148, 

154, 155, 213, 258, 260, 261, 273, 

309, 320 
Chardri, 118, 131 
Charlemagne, 5, 31, 146-159, 165, 178, 

213, 258, 281, 285, 357, 397 
Charlemagne and Roland, 154 



Charles the Great, 155, 156 

Charte aux Anglais, La, 129 

Chastel d' Amors, 134 

Chateau d' Amour, 133 

Chdtelain de Coucy, 200 

Chaucer, 7, 10, 16, 20, 25, 28, 57, 
58, 60, 69, 74, 76, 77, 83, 89, 90, 
91, 92, 99, 100, 101, 108, 109, 
113, 114, 115, 126, 131, 135, 136, 
139, 140, 143, 155, 157, 180, 181, 
182, 185, 189, 191, 193, 195, 199, 
215, 224, 225, 226, 230, 235, 259, 
264, 271, 279, 282, 283, 289, 290, 
291, 292, 293, 295, 296, 297, 298, 
300, 301, 304, 305, 306, 317, 324, 
3 2 5> 3 2 7- 332,-334. 335. 338, 34°. 
341, 342, 343, 346, 347, 373, 377, 
390, 395. 4io, 411, 413, 425, 428, 
429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 443, 449 

Chestre, Thomas, 181, 183, 184, 227 

Chevalier au Barizel, 329 

Chevalier au Lion, 230 

Chevalier av. Cygne, 315 

Chevy Chace, 449 

Child, Professor, 201, 277, 281 

Child Jesus and Masters of the Law of 
Jews, Disputation between, 425 

Child of Bristow, 329, 403 

Childhood of Jesus, 277 

Christiafi and a Jew, Disputation be- 
tween a, 425-426 

Chronica (Bury St. Edmund's), 43 

Chronica Majora (M. Paris), 44, 45 

Chronicle of Turpin, 151 

Chronicles (Holinshed), 348 

Chronicon ex Chronicis (Florence of 
Worcester), 35 

Chro7iique des Dues de Normandie 
(Benoit), 122 

Cicero, 36, 339 

Cid, 74 

Cimabue, 98 

Cinthio, 347 

Clanvowe, 429 

Clariodus, 318 

Claris Mulieribus, De, 340, 341 

Clarke, Adam, 389 

Claudian, 297 

Cleanness, 378 

Cleges, Sir, 322 

Clemence of Barking, 131 

CUomades, 304 

Clerico et Puella, De, 322 

Clerk's Tale (of Griselda), 192, 194 



490 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Cliges, 12, 117 

Cnut, Song of, 30 

Cobsam, Adam, 321 

Colet, 109 

Comestor, Peter, 76, 375 

Commentary on Job (Jewish), 64 

Complaint, 133 

Comput, 132 

Comus, 427 

Conception af Mary, 376-277 

Confessio Amautis, 99, 224, 289, 306, 
343, 411, 416 

Confession of Golias, 58 

Consolatio Philosophiae, 76, 430 

Consolatio pro Morte Amici, 65 

Constance, 126, 191, 192, 194, 313 

Constant du Hamel, 322 

Constantinus Afer, 93 

Conte de Bretaigne, Le, 420 

Conte de la Charette, 236-238 

Conte del Graal, 176, 242-243 

Contemptu Mundi, De, 76 

Cornelius Nepos, 66 

Cornwall, John, 113 

Corpore el Sanguine Domini Nostri, 
De, 33 

Corset, 129 

Court of Love, 443 

Courtier, 431-432 

Creed, 130 

Crestien de Troyes, 12, 14, 70, 116, 
117, 138, 174, 175, 176, 177, 198, 
203-204, 215, 229, 230-232, 234, 
235, 236, 242, 244, 245, 288, 322 

Cronycles of England, 127 

Cuckolds Dance, 199 

Cuckoo and Nightingale, 429 

Cuckoo Song, 443-444 

Cur Deus Homo, 33 

Cura Rei Familiaris , De, 424 

Cursor Mundi, 76, 375-376 

Cuthbert, St. , Life of, 36 

Cymbeline; 39 

Cynewulf, 390 

Dame Sirith, 96, 321, 322 

Dan Hugh Monk of Leicester, 326 

Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 401, 

429 
Daniel, Arnaut, 68 
Daniel of Morley, 63 
Dante, 79, 80, 81, 93, 108, 137, 342, 

403. 433 
Dares Phrygius, 286, 288, 290, 291 



David, 123 

Davy, Adam, 19, 367 

Death, 385 

Decameron, 195, 321, 325, 326, 340, 

346 
Decreta (Lanfranc), 33 
Defoe, 252 
Degare, Sir, 15, 181, 182, 186-187, 

194 
Degrevant, Sir, 311 
Denis Pyramus, 131, 174, 307 
Deschamps, Eustache, 135 
Description of Wales, 41, 75, 419 
Dialogue on the Exchequer, 57 
Dialogues (Gregory the Great), 132 
Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, 

423 
Dictys Cretensis, 286 
Dies Irae (Thomas of Celano), 65 
Digby MS. , 448 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 433 
Dioscorides, 92, 93 
Disticha Catonis, 132, 422 
Diu Krdne, 217 
Divine Co??tedy, 108, 402 
Dolopathos, 345, 346 
Donatus, 49 
Doomsday, 385 
Doomsday Book, 31 
Doon, 186, 200 
Douglas, Gavin, 281 
Dream of Hell, 402 
Dream of Rhonabwy, -2.2,2. 
Drihthelm, 398 
Dryden, 294, 296 
Dudo of St. Quentin, 122 
Duke Roland and Sir Otiuell of Spain, 

153 
Dulcis Jesu Memor-ia, 441 
Dunbar, 185, 281, 401, 417, 429 
Duns Scotus, 10, 29, 94, 95, 100, 104 
Dunstan, St., 16 ; Life of, 34 

Eadmer, 34 

Earl of Tolouse, 181, 182, 196-197, 

200, 311 
Eccleston, 43 

Edda, 23, 74, 75, 90, 218, 424 
Edmund, St., Life of, 131, 362 
Edward III., Life of ', 252 
Edward the Confessor, 131 ; Life of, 

30, 36 
Edwards, Richard, 296 
Edwin of Canterbury, 129 



INDEX 



491 



[ 94 



Eger and Grine, 232 

Egidio Colonna, 432 

Eginhard, 149 

Eglamour of Artois, Sir, 313^ 

Eilhart von Oberg, 203 

Ellis, 154 

Ellis, George, 275 

Elucidarius, 424 

Emare, 181, 182, 189-191, 192, 

Emendacione Vitae, De, 107 

Endymion, 157 

English- and Scottish Popular Ballads, 

281 
Enoch, Book of, 398 
Ephemeris Belli Trojani, 286 
Epictetus, 425 
Epitome of Valerius, 300 
Erasmus, 109, 397 
Erec, 175, 176, 235 
Esopi Fabulae, 332 
Espec, Walter, 120 
Estorie des Bretons, 120 
Estorie des Engleis, 120, 270 
Estrabots, 128 
Etienne de Bourbon, 342 
Eulogium, 53 

Euphues' Golden Legacy, 280 
Eustace, 303 

Eustace, St. , Life of, 393 
Eustace of Kent, 117, 300 
Everard, 423 
Evil Times of Edward II. , On the, 

37o-37i 
Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, De, 

160 
Execution of Sir Simon Eraser, 364 
Exempt a, 101, 342 
Exodus, 374-375 
Eystein, Archbishop, 73 

Fables of Bidpai, 330 

Fabliaux, 118, 323-326,' 338, 348 

Fabyan, 7, 364 

Faerie Queene, 157 

Faidit, Gaucelm, 68 

Fair Annie, 200 

Fall and Passion, 378 

Falls of Princes, 341 

Fantosme, Jordan, 124 

Fatal Dowry, 322 

Father s Teaching, 421 

Fauconbridge, 109 

Faustus, Dr., 90, 318 

Felon Sow and Friars of Richmond, 326 



Ferrex and Porrex, 39 

Ferumbras (Fierabras), Sir, 153, 154, 

*55 
Festial, 395 

Festo Corporis Christi, 389 
Fillingham MS. , 154 
Filostrato, II, 292-293 
FitzNeal, Richard, 57 
FitzRalph, Richard, 102 
FitzStephen, Ralph, 368 
Fitzstephen, William, 66 
Five Joys, 133 
Fletcher, 296 

Florence of Worcester, 35, 123 
Florent, 224 

Flores and Blancheflour, 15, 306, 307 
Flores Historiarum, 44 
Folie Tristan, La, 116, 203 
Foliot, Gilbert, 56 
Foliot, Robert, 56 
Folly of Fools and Thews of Wise Men, 

424 
Foray of Gadderis, 303 
Forrest, Sir William, 432 
Fortescue, 109 
Four So?is of Aymon, 156 
Fox and the Wolf, 96, 334, 369 
Fox Fables, 64 
Foxe, 109 ' 

Fragment on Popular Science, 432 
Francis, St., of Assisi, 18 
Franklins Tale, 89, 180, 181, 182, 

194, 206, 322, 343 
Frederick II., 79, 80 
Freine, Le, 15, 181, 182, 192-194, 

200 
Friar and Boy, 326 
Friar Bacon and Friar Bongay, 87 
Friar Rush, 318 
Friar Well-Fitted, 322 
Froissart, 14, 127, 135 
Fuerre de Gadres, 303 
Fulk FitzWarren, Life of, 117, 277 
Furseus, 398 

Gaimar, GeoffreyrTT6v 420, 123, 270 

Galen, 92, 93 

Gallas, Laurentius. See Lorens, Friar 

Garganelle, 392 

Gamier du Pont St. Maxence, 124 

Gatesden, John, 93 

Gautier de Chateau-Thierry, 342 

Gautier de Chatillon, jj 

Gaveston, Piers, 76, 99, 361, 365 



492 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Gawain, Sir, 73, 99, 116, 178, 179, 

214-234 
Gawain and the Green Knight, 23, 

215, 220, 383, 451 
Gay, John, 332 
Gemma Ecclesiastica, 41, 445 
Gemmis, De, 76 
Genealogia Deorum Gentilium et He- 

roum, De, 341 
Genealogia Regum Anglorum, De, 36, 

359 
Generides, Sir, 310 
Genesis, 374 
Geoffrey, 66 

Geoffrey de Vinsauf, 74, 76 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 28, 37-39, 42, 

66, 69, 72, 73, 76, 89, 116, 119-120, 

121, 123, 127, 160, 165, 166, 167, 

168, 169, 170, 171, 177, 194, 195, 

232, 249, 251, 270, 283, 284, 285, 

35L 352. 353. 354. 357. 359. 3 6l > 

3 68 - 45 1 
George a Green, 318 
George and the Dragon, St., 131 
Gerald de Barri. See Giraldus Cam- 

brensis 
Gerard la Pucelle, 53, 56 
Germanus, St., Life of, 160 
Gervase of Tilbury, 43, 88, 342 
Gest of Robin Hood, 277-278 
Gesta {Acta) Pilati, 378 
Gesta Romanorum, jj, 338, 339, 340 
Geste Hystoriale of the Destruction of 

Troy, 289 
Geste of King Horn, 148, 261-262, 448 
Geste of Robin Hood, 148 
Geste of Sir Gawain, 215 
Gestis Regum Anglorum, De, 36 
Gheraint, 177 
Ghost of Sir Guy, 329, 403 
Gilbert, 93 

Gilbert de la Porrte, 51, 124 
Gildas, 160, 161 
Giles, St., Life of, 131 
Giorgione, 21 
Giotto, 98 

Giovanni Fiorentino, 347 
Giraldus Cambrensis, 28, 39-42, 59, 

70, 72, 75, 116, 125, 131, 171, 

281, 419, 428, 445 
Godefroi de Lagny,',238 
Godefroy de Bouillon, 316-317 
Godfrey of Winchester, 64 
Goethe, 333 



Golagros and Gawain, 220-222 

Golden Legend, 403 

Golden Targe, 185 

Golden Treasury, 435 

Goliardic verse, 58-59 

Good Knight and his Jealous Wife, 

327-328 
Good Man and the Devil, 425 
Good Orison of Our Lady, 438-439 
Gorboduc, 39 
Gordon, Bernard, 93 
Gospel of Nicodemus, 1 30 
Gotelef Lay of, 201 
Gottfried von Strassburg, 5, 202, 205, 

210 
Gower, 20, 64, 76, 88, 99, 108, 114, 

117, 126, 135, 136, 138, 143, 191, 

200, 224, 225, 289, 306, 340, 343, 
^37_2, 373^383^.411, 415, 416 
Gowghter, Sir, 181, 182, 186, 187- 

188, 190 
Graalent, Lay of, 175 
Grand St. Graal, 245, 247 
Gray, Sir Thomas, 127, 232 
Great Battle of Effesoun, 303 
Green Knight, The, 217 
Greene, Robert, 87 
Gregory, Pope, 9, 49, 351 ; Life of, 

132 
Gregory, St., 393, 405 
Griselda, 192, 193, 200 
Grocyn, 109 
Grosseteste, Robert, 10, 18, 29, 83- 

85, 86, 88, 113, 133, 134, 386, 

387, 410, 412 
Guido delle Colonne, 77, 288, 289, 290, 

292, 293 
Guigemar, Lay of, 190, 307, 310 
Guillaume d' Angleteri-e, 117 
Guillaume de Berneville, 131 
Guillaume de Deguilleville, 403 
Guillaume de Lorris, 134, 138, 324 
Guillaume de Machaut, 135 
Guingamor, Lay of, 175, 192, 199, 307 
Guinglain, 179, 226, 228 
Guiron, Lay of, 200 
Guy and Colbrand, 272 
Guy de Warwick, 117 
Guy of Warwick, 15, 31, 258, 260, 

271-274, 275, 311 
Guyot (Kyot), 244-245 
Gylfaginning, 75 

Hakon Hakonsson, King, 73, 181, 202 



^ 



INDEX 



493 



Haly, 92 

Handlyng Synne, 343, 362, 411, 413, 

416 
Hardyng, John, 363 
Harleian MS., 444, 448* 
Harold, King, Latin Life of, 30 
Harrowing of Hell, 448 
Hartmann von Aue, 5, 176 
Hattatdl, 75 
Hdvamdl, 418 
Havelok, 31, 117, 120, 258, 266-270, 

275, 362 
Hawes, Stephen, 88 
Hay, Sir Gilbert, 304 
Heinrich von Freiber"-, 202 
Helie de Boron, 212 
Helyas, Knight of the Swan, 315-316 
Hendyng. See Proverbs of Hendyng 
Henri d'Avranches, 366 
Henry de Bracton, 62 
Henry of Huntingdon, 35, 36, 67, 123, 

359. 362 
Henry of Saltrey, 65, 400 
Henry V. , 294 

Henryson, Robert, 294, 297, 332 
Heptatneron, 348 
Herbert, 345 
Here Prophecy, 368 
Hereward, 7, 30, 120, 276 
Hermes, 92 

Hermit and the Outlaw, 328 
Herod and Merlin, 252 
Heywood, John, 326, 430 
Heywood, Thomas, 252 
Higden, Ranulph, 45, 113, 433 
Hilarius, 66, 67 , 

Hildebert of Tours, 65 
Hind Horn, 265 
Hippocrates, 92, 93 
Hirlas Horn, 72 

Histoire de la Gtcerre Saint e, 125 
Historia Alexandri Magni, 299 
Historia Anglorum, 36 
Historia Britonum, 160, 162, 166, 170 
Historia Danica, 73 
Historia de Excidio Trojae, 286 
Historia Destructionis Trojae, 288 
Historia Novorum, 34 
Historia Regum Britanniae, 37, 166, 

170, 194, 249, 354, 451 
Historia Scholastica, 76, 375 
Historia Septem Sapientum Romae, 

346 
Historiae Novellae, 36 



History of Friar Bacon, 87 

History of Glastonbury, 36 

History of Gothic Art in England, 95 

History of the Conquest of Ireland, 40 

History of the English, 270 

History, Siege, and Destruction of 

Troy, 290 
Holcot, Robert, 101, 342 
Holinshed, 233, 348 
Holland, 332 
Holy Maidenhood, 380 
Homer, 282, 283 
Honore" d'Autun, 424 
Horace, 293 
Horn, King, 31, 73, 258, 260-266, 

274 
Horn Child, 15, 264-265, 268 
Horn et Rimenhild, 117 
House of Fame, 20, 282 
How a Merchant did his Wife betray, 

How a Sergeant would learn to be a 
Friar, 326 

How the Good Wife taught her Daughter, 
422 

How the Plowman learned his Pater- 
noster, 326 

How the Wise Man taught his Son, 422 

How to hear Mass, 389 

Hudibras, 88 

Hugh of Rutland, 113, 117, 310 

Hugo of St. Victor, 386 

Hunting of the Hare, 326 

Huon de Mery, 403 

Hundred Merry Tales 326 

Hypognosticon, 65 

Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 64 
Idylls of the King, 239^^*' 
Ignaure, Lay of, zoor^ 
Iliad, 285, 297 
Image du Monde, 133 
Imagines (Ralph of Diceto), 43 
Immaculate Conception (Wace), 130 
Incendio.Amoris, De, 107 
Innocent III., 41, 74, 76, 78, 79 
Instruction of Parish Priests, 395 
Inter Aquam et Vinum, 70 
Inter Cor et Oculum, 70 
/ sigh when I sing, 441 
Isidore of Seville, 49, 433 
Isumbras, Sir, 313, 314 
Itinerarium Regis Richardi, 125 
Ivain, 176, 230-232, 307 



494 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Jacob ben Jehuda, 63 

Jacobus de Voragine, 77, 394 

Jacques de Longueyon, 303 

Jacques de Vitry, 342 

Jatakas, 330 

Jean d' Arras, 316 

Jean de Hauteville, 60 

Jean de Meung, 76, 96, 138, 324 

Jeaste of Sir Gawain, 228 

Jehan de Waurin, 127 

Jerome, 49, 405 

Jesu, Lover of my soul, 441 

Jocelyn of Brakeland, 43 

Johannes Damascenus, 92 

John, King, 68, 79, 98 

John de Cella, 44 

John of Fornsete, 444 

John of Garland, 74 

John of Cornwall, 53 

John of Halifax, 91 

John of Poictiers, 53 

John of Salisbury, 28, 50-52, 53, 76, 

81 
John of Treves (Trevisa). See Treves 
John the Reeve, 281-282 
Johnson, Dr. , 260 
Johnson, Richard, 318 
Johon, 445 
Joinville, 96, 125 
Joscelin, 97 
Joseph of Arimathea, 241, 243, 245, 

246 
Joseph of Exeter, 66, 289 
Judas, 378, 449 
Juliana, Life of, 390 
Junius, 384 

Keats, 157, 280 

King Alisaunder, 251, 300, 301, 302, 

314 
King Arthur and King Cornwall, 152 
King Edward III. and the Tanner of 

Tamworth, 153 
King Henry II. and the Miller of 

Mansfield, 153 
King and the Miller, 281 
King and the Tanner, 281 
King of Tars, 312-313 
Kings, Book of, 129 
King's Ankus, 321 
King ' s Breaking his Confirmation of 

Magna Charta, 365 
Kipling, 321 
Knight of Courtesy, 200 



Knighton, Henry, 45 
Knight's Tale, 295, 296 
Konrad of Wurzburg, 289 
Koran, 63 
Kulhwych and Olwen, 164 

La Chievre, 203 

La Couldrette, 316 

La Fontaine, 325, 332 

Lady Diamond, 200 

Lady of the Lake, 89, 236 

Lady Prioress and her three Wooers, 

321 
Lai du Cor, 180, 197 
Lamb, Charles, 91 
Lambert li Tort, 299 
Lamwell, Sir, 181, 182 
Lancelot, 178, 179, 186, 188, 234- 

240 
Lancelot (Crestien), 236-238 
Lancelot (prose), 235-236, 255 
Lancelot of the Laik, 239 
La?id of Cokayg?ie, 96, 325, 369 
Landndmabdk, 31 
Lanfranc, 28, 32-34, 44, 48 
Lang, Andrew, 307 
Langland, 20, 58, 83, 99, 107, 108, 

33 2 > 37 1 . 37 2 . 373- 4 Z 5> 4 l6 . 449". 

452 
Langtoft, 123, 126, 232, 362, 363 
Langton, Stephen, 79, 80, 99 
Lanval, Lay of, 175, 180, 181, 183, 

192, 307 
La Tour Landri, the Knight of, 343, 

344 
Latini, Brunetto, 137 
Launfal, Sir, 181, 182, 199, 227 
Laurea Anglicana, 93 
Lawrence of Durham, 65 
Layamon, 11, 25, 39, 73, 96, 97, 114, 

164, 232, 233, 254, 350, 351-3S2. 

353. 354. 357. 359- 36i. 451 
Lay of the Great Fool, 228 
Lay of the Last Minstrel, 65, 88 
Leabhar na h-Uidre, 31 
Lear, 39, 340 

Legend of Good Women, 338, 340, 341 
Legenda Aurea, 378, 394-395 
Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni 

Angliae, De, 62 
Leland, 361 

Leo the Archpresbyter, 299, 301 
Leofric, 30 
Leys d' Amor, 447 



INDEX 



495 



Libeaus Desconus, 184, 226, 227, 242, 

3°7 
Liber de Septem Bonis, 342 
Liber Scintillarum, 33 
Lilium Medicinae, 93 
Little Sooth Sermon, 385 
Livre d' Artus, 236 
Livre des Eneydes, 297 
Livy, 297 
Locrine, 39 
Lodge, Thomas, 280 
Lombard, Peter, 53 
Longfellow, 314 
Long Life, 385 

Lord Lorn and tlie False Steward, 200 
Lorens, Friar, 97, 409 
Love Rune, 439-441 
Lovelich, Henry, 247, 251 
Lover s Message, 202 
Love's Labour s Lost, 282 
Luc de la Barre, 128 
Lucan, 297 
Luces de Gast, 212 
Lumiere as Lais, La, 133 
Luther, 100, 397 
Lydgate, John, 88, 251, 289, 290, 296, 

297, 310, 321, 322, 33"i, 34 - T _ 388, 

^395- 4037423T43 1 . 43 2 ~ " 

Lyndesay, 304 

Mabinogion, 23, 74, 75, 162, 170, 229, 

232, 242 
Macabru, 68 

Madden, Sir Frederic, 353 
Malmesbury. See William of Malmes- 

bury 
Malory, Sir Thomas, 198, 203, 211, 

214, 215, 218, 222, 236, 239, 240, 

241, 246, 250, 255 
Manciple s Tale, 324 
Mandeville, Sir John, 304 
Man of Law s Tale, 194, 313 
A/anicre de Langage, 137 
Mantel Mautaille', 197 
Man fie- Made- Amiss, 321 
Manuel des Pickle's, 118, 411 
Map, Walter, 29, 42, 56-59, 70, 72, 

76, 114, 117, 245, 342, 372 
Marbod, Bishop of Rennes, 76 
Marco Polo, 89, 137, 305 ^ 

Margaret, St., Life of, 390-392 
Margaret of Navarre, 348 
Marianus Scotus, 35 
Marie de France, 64, 70, 116, 118, 



174, 175, 177, 180, 181, 182, 184, 
190, 195, 199, 20i, 310, 331, 342, 

400, 429 

Marriage of Mercury and Philology, 49 

Marsh, Adam, 85, 104 

Marshal, William (Earl of Pembroke), 
Life of, 125 

Martial, 64 

Martianus Capella, 49 

Mary and the Cross, Disputation be- 
tween, 425 

Massinger, 322 

Matthew of Westminster, 312 

Mauro et Zoilo, De, 70 

Maximian, 443 

Maximion, 443 

Meir of Norwich, 63 

Meliboeus, 77 

Melior et Idoine, De, 135 

Melum Contemplativorum, 107 

Milusine, 192, 316 

Merchatit of Venice, 340 

Merchant's Tale, 185 

Meres, Francis, 156 

Merle and the Nightingale, 429 

Merlin, 38, 89, 90, 121, 178, 179, 
188, 189, 195, 209, 248-252 

Merlin, Life of, 252 

Metalogicus, 51, 52 

Metamorphoses , 297 

Michel, Dan, 409, 411, 413 

Midsummer Night's Drea?n, 157 

Miller of Abyngdon, 325 

Miller's Tale, 324 

Milton, 39, 67, 109, 171, 283, 284, 
3°4. 3 8 4 

Milun, Lay of, 186 

Afinnesingers, 74, 76 

Minot, Lawrence, 20, 99, 365-367, 368 

Minstrels, 16, 20, 21 

Miracles of Our Lady, 18, 118, 327 

Mireour du Monde, 411 

Mirk, John, 395 

Miroir (Robert of Gretham), 129, 130 

Mirour de I'Omme, 411 

Mirror for Alagistrates , 341 

Misyn, Richard, 107 

Modwenna, Life of, 131 

Moliere, 346 

Mona?rhia, De, 108 

Monk's Tale, 298, 338, 340, 341, 396, 
429 

Monologion, 33 

Moralitates, 101 



496 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



More, Thomas, Sir, 109, 326 
Morte Arthure (alliterative), 253-254 
Morte Arthure (stanzas), 238, 255 
Morte Darthur (Malory), 211, 236, 

241, 246, 247, 255-258 
Moses Ben Isaac, 64 
Moses of London, 63 
MAle sans Frein, 217 
Murimuth, Adam, 45 

Narcissus, Lay of, 186 
Naturis Rerum, De, 62, 336-337 
Neckham, Alexander, 61, 62, 88, 336 
Nennius, 160, 161, 162, 166, 167, 

170, 171, 249 
Nesta, 72 
Nibelungenlied, 74 
Niccola of Pisa, 98 
Nicholas, St., Life of, 130 
Nine Nobles, Ballad of the, 317 
Nine Worthies, 316 
North, 347 
Nova Poetria, 74 
Novellieri of Italy, 347 
Nugae amatoriae, 67 
Nugis Curialium, De, 51, 56-57 
Nun's Priest's Tale, 60, 74, ioi, 334, 

335. 342 

Occleve, 432 

Ocean of the Rivers of Story, 346 

Ockham. See William of Ockham 

Octavian, 184, 313 

Odo of Sheriton, 331, 333 

Odyssey, 309 

Officium et Legenda (Rolle), 106, 108 

Onyx Book, 64 

Opus Mains, 86 

Opus Minus, 87 

Opus Tertium, 87 

Opuscula (Peter of Blois), 54 

Oratore, De, 339 

Order of Fair Ease, 369 

Ordericus Vitalis, 35, 128 

Ordre de Bel Aise, L', 128 

Orfeo, Sir, 15, 181, 182, 184-185, 186, 

199, 200, 309 
Organon, 52, 81 

Original Chronicle of Scotland, 363 
Origins (Isidore of Seville), 49 
Orm, 382, 383 

Ormulum, 142, 382-384, 438, 451 
Orosius, 49 
Orpheus a?id Eurydice (Henryson), 298 



Osbern of Canterbury, 34 

Osmund of Salisbury, 34 

Oswald, St., Life of, 34 

Otia hnperialia, 43 

Otuel, 15, 153, 154 

Ovid, 108, 288, 289, 297 

Owain, 177 

Owen, 72 

Owl and the Nightingale, 71, 97, 419, 

■ 427-43° 

Pains of Hell, 130 

Painter, 347 

Paix aux Anglais, La, 129 

Palace of Pleasure, 347 

Palamon and Arcite, 295, 296, 324 

Palgrave, 435 

Panchatantra, 331 

Panther a?id the Whale, 335 

Paracelsus, 90 

Pardoner and Friar, 430 

Pardoner s Tale, 342 

Paris, Gaston, 203 

Paris, Matthew, 44, 59, 73, 84, 90 

Paris and Vienne, 318 

Parlia?nent of the Three Ages, 316 

Parsons Tale, 324, 410, 411, 413, 416 

Partenay, 316 

Parthenope, 308-309 

Parthenopeus de Blois, 307 

Parzival, 176, 229, 244 

Past and Present (Carlyle), 43 

Patience, 378 

Pearl, 20, 23, 101, 109, 114, 220, 379, 

381, 402, 425, 449 
Penny, Sir, 372 
Pennyworth of Wit, 325 
Pensoroso, II, 304 
Peraldus, William, 410 
Perceval, 178, 229, 230 
Perceval, 70, 116, 179, 215, 217, 

228, 229, 230, 454 
Perceval of Galles, Sir, 229, 230 
Percy, Bishop, 282 
Percy Folio MS., 181, 217, 224 
Peredur, 177, 229, 242 
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 306, 340 
Pers de Langtoft. See Langtoft 
Peter de Riga, 76 
Peter de la Celle, 51 
Peter des Roches, 99 
Peter of Blois, 53-56, 67 
Peter of Peckham, 133 
Petite Philosophic, 133 



INDEX 



497 



Petrarch, 108, 193 

i'haedrus, 331 
/Philippe de Beaumanoir, 96 
(Philippe de Thaiin, 132, 336 
j Phillide et Flora, De, 70, 135 
/ Philobiblon, 102, 103 
tPhysiologus, 335, 336, 337, 380 
[Picture (Massinger), 322 

I' Piers Ploughman, 59 
Pilate, 378 
Pilgj-image of Charlemagne, 151, 152, 
/53. 22 3 

Pilgrim s Progress, 403 

Pindar of Wakefield, 318 

Pindarus Thebanus, 286 

Planctu Naturae, De, 76 

Pliny, 433 
; Plutarch, 347 

Poema Morale, 382 
; Poesye of Princely Practise, 432 
1 Poggio, 347 

Polychronicon, 45 

Polycraticus, 51, 56, 76 

Ponthus de la Tour Landri, 265 

Ponthus et Sidoine, 265 

Poore, Bishop, 97 

Pope, Alexander, 26 

Presbytero et Logico, De, 70 

Prick of Conscience, 76, 106, 388 

Prior, E. S., 95 

Prioress's Tale, 131, 324 

Priscian, 49 

Proeliis, De, 301 

Proprietatibus Rerum, De, 92, 432 

Proslogion, 33 

Protesilaus, 117, 310 

Proud Lady Margaret, 200 

Proverbe au Vilain, Li,' 420 

Proverbia (Godfrey of Winchester), 64 

Proverbs of Divers Prophets, etc. , 423 

Proverbs of Hendyng, 420, 448 

Proverbs of King Alfred, 419, 420, 421 

Proverbs of Solomon, 129 

Psalms, French versions of, 129 

Pseudo-Callisthenes, 299 

Pullus, Robert, 53 

Purgatory of St. Patrick, 65, 400 

1 ttenham, 140, 271 

Py amus and Thisbe, 186 

Quaestiones Naturales, 63, 64 

Quest of the Holy Gj-ail, 117, 179, 212, 

229, 235, 240-248 
Queste del St. Graal, 245 



Rabelais, 392 

Ralph Collier, 153, 281 

Ralph of Coggeshall, 43, 401 

Ralph of Diceto, 42, 43 

Ralph of Sarr, 53 

Randolph, Earl of Chester, 449 

Ranulph de Glanville, 40, 62 

Raoul de Houdenc, 403 

Raoul le Fevre, 290 

Ratis Raving, 424 

Raymund of Pennafort, 410 

Reading Rota, 444 

Rebus Gestis Ricardi Primi, De, 43 

Recueil (Jehan de Waurin), 127 

Recuyell of the Historyes of T?vye, 290 

Red Rose Knight, 318 

Reeve's Tale, 324, 325 

Regan, Morice, 124 

Regimine Principum, De, 432 

Reginald of Canterbury, 64-65, 69 

Reginald of Durham, 437 

Regula Heremitarum, 107 

Regula hiclusarum, 409 

Reinbrttn, 15 

Reinecke Fuchs, 333 

Renaud de Beaujeu, 176, 227 

Renaud de Moniauban, 156 

Respit del Curteis et del Vilain, 421 

Resurrection, 136 

Retinues of Great People, 369 

Rhasis, 92 

Richard, 447 

Richard, King, 68, 70 

Richaj-d Coer de Lyo?i, 117, 314-315, 

362, 364 
Richard l'Eveque, 51 
Richard of Bury, 13, 29, 81, 102, 104, 

142 
Richard of Devizes, 43 
Richard of London, 125 
Rishanger, 45 
Ritson, 368 
Road to Paradise, 402 
Robert (Norwegian friar), 202 
Robert de Boron, 116, 243-245, 249, 

250 
Robert de Sorbon, 80 
Robert of Brunne, 18, 114, 118, 123, 

209, 211, 232, 233, 235, 267, 343, 

362, 363, 411-416 
Robert of Gloucester, 38, 72, 96, 113, 

114, 137, 233, 3S8-361, 394. 432 
Robert of Gretham, 129, 130 
Robert of Melun, 51, 52, 53 

2 K 



498 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Robert of Retines, 63 

Robert of Sicily, 314, 348 

Robin Hood, 277-281, 333, 449 

Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, 278 

Robin Hood mid the Monk, 278 

Robin Hood and the Potter, 278 

Robinson, Richard, 340 

Roger of Hoveden, 42, 43 

Roger of Wendover, 44 

Roland and Vernagu, 15, 154 

Rolland, 346 

Rolle, Richard, 11, 20, 76, 99, 105- 

108, 388, 416, 438 
Roman d' Alixandre, 299 
Roman d'E-?u ! as, 287 
Roman de Renart, 96, 332, 333 
Roman de la Rose, 25, 76, 96, 97, 134, 

223, 297, 343, 402 
Roman de Ron, 122 
Roman de Thebes, 117, 287 
Roman de Toute Chevalerie, 117, 300 
Roman de Troie, 122, 287, 292 
Roman van den Vos Reinarde, 332 
Romeo and Juliet, zij 
Romulus, 331 
Rosa Anglicana, 93 
Rosarie, 92 

Rosiphele, Tale of, 200 
Roswell and Lillian, 188 
Rufus, 92 

Rule of St. Benedict, 408 
Run map Urbgen, 160 
Rustebeuf, 96 
Rustician of Pisa, 117, 137 
Rymour, Thomas, 209 

Sabrina, Tale of, 39 

Sachs, Hans, 322 

Sackville, 341 

Salisbury. See John of Salisbury 

Samson de Nanteuil, 129 

Samuel, Book of, 129 

Samuel of Bristol, 64 

Satire on the Monks and the People of 

Kildare, 373 
Savaric de Mauleon, 68 
Saw of St. Bede, 424 
Saxo Grammaticus, 73 
Sayings of St. Bernard, 424 
Scalacronica, 127, 232, 368 
Schiller, 340 
Scipio Africanus, 108 
Scott, Michael, 88 
Scott, Sir Walter, 203, 275, 294 



Scrope, Stephen, 423 

Second Nuns Tale, 347 

Secret des Secrets, 133 

Secretum Secretorum, 432 

Seneca, 443 

Sententiae (Peter Lombard), 53 

Sept Dormatits, 131 

Serapion, 92 

Serlo of Wilton, 74 

Sermon against Miracle Plays, 38 1 

Seve?i Champions of Christendom, 318^ 

Seven Deadly Sins, 15, 130, 380, 387, 

410, 413, 416, 417, 425 
Seven Sages, 89, 252, 344-346 
Seven Wise Masters, 15 
Shakspere, 157, 280, 294, 296, 326, 

340, 348, 417, 433 
Shipman's Tale, 324 
Shoreham, William of, 387-388, 416 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 67 
Siege and Conquest of Jerusalem, 316 
Siege of Jerusalem, 378 
Siege of Milan, 154 
Siege of Troy, 289 
Siger de Brabant, 94 
Signs of Judgment, 130 
Simon de Fresne, 131 
Simon de Montfort, 85, 86, 99, 128, 

3 6 4 
Simeon of Durham, 35 
Singular Adventures of Gawain, 233 
Sinners Beware, 385 
Skaldskaparmdl, 75 
Skelton, 443 

Smith and the Dame, The, 330 
Snorri Sturluson, 73, 74, 75, 90 
Somme des Vices et des Vertus, 97, 409, 

410, 411 
Song against tlie King of Almaigne, 

3 6 4 
Song of Lewes, 85 
Song of Nego, 370 
Song of Roland, 25 
Song of the Barons, 85 
Song of the Church, 127 
Song on the Flemish Insurrection, 364 
Song of the Husbandman, 369 
Song on the Joys of the Virgin, 387 
Song on the Passion, 441, 442 
Song on the Tailors, 128 
Sordello, 68 
Soul's Ward, 386 
Sowdone of Babylon, 154 
Specimens (Ellis), 275 



INDEX 



499 



Spectator, 449 

Speculum Guy de Warwick, 389 

Speculum Historiale, 77 

Jeculutn Humanae Salvationis, 378 
eculum Stultorum, 60 
^enser, 89, 157, 308, 321, 417 
Spirituali Amicitia, De, 36 
Squire of Low Degree, 310-311 
Squire'.s Tale, 89, 226, 304, 305 
Stans Puer ad Mensam, 431 
Statius, 289, 295 
Steele, Robert, 91 
Steinhowel, 332 
Stephen, St. , and Herod, 449 
Stephens, Thomas, 31 
Story of England (Robert de Brunne). 

361-362 
Straparola, 347 
Study of Celtic Literature, 162 
Sturla, 73 

Summa Predicantium, 342 
Summa Theologiae, 53 
Super Libros Sapientiae, 342 
Sverrir, King, 73 
Sweet /esu, King of Bliss, 441 
Swinburne, 214 

Taillefer, 147 

Tale of Beryn, 322 

Tale of Incestuous Daughter, 329 

Tale of Melibeus, 430 

Tale of the Basin, 326 

Tales of the Wayside Inn, 314 

Taliessin, 121 

Tasso, 316 

Tennyson, 214, 215, 239, 240, 247, 252 

Teseide, II, 295, 296 

Testament of Cresseid, 294 

Thebaid, 295, 297 
Theobald, 336 

Theobald of Canterbury, 51, 53 
Thomas (author of Tristan), 70, 116, 
202, 203, 204, 205, 208, 210, 211, 
261, 263, 264, 265 
Thomas, Archbishop of York, 69 
Thomas Aquinas, 8i, 82, 87, 88, 104, 

433 
Thomas a Reading, 318 
Thomas of Celano, 65 
Thomas of Erceldoun, 208-210, 368 
Thomas of Hales, 439, 440 
Thomas of Walsingham, 45, 312 
Thopas, Sir, 16, 182, 227, 230, 265, 
271. 305 



Thornton, Robert, 15 

Three King's Sons, 318 

Three Messengers of Death, 389 

Thrush and a Nightingale, Dispute 

between a, 15 
Tom a Lincoln, History of, 318 
Topography of Ireland, 40, 41, 428 
Torrent of Portitga I, 3 1 3 
Tournament of Antichrist, 403 
Tournament of Totenham, 326 
Tree that Bore Good Fruit, 339 
T rentals of St. Gregory, 220 
Trisor (Latini), 137 
Treves, John of, 45, 113, 433-434 
Triamour, Sir, 313 
Tripartite Chronicle, 108 
Tristan, 70, 116, 202, 204, 212 
Tristram, 31, 73, 178, 179, 197, 201- 

214 
Tristram, Sir, 15, 203, 208, 209, 210, 

211, 212 
Trivet, Nicholas, 43, 126, 191, 298, 

362 
Troilus and Cressida, 290, 292, 293, 

295, 296 
Troilus and Cressida, or Truth Found 

Too Late, 294 
Trojanerk?-ieg, 289 
Trokelowe, 45 
Trot, Lay of the, 200 
Troubadours, 16, 6.8, 69 
Turk and Gawain, 218 
Twine, Lawrence, 306 
Two Noble Kinsmen, 296 
Tydorel, Lay of, 186 
Tyolet, Lay of 228 

Ulrich von Turheim, 202 
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, 234 

Valentine and Orson, 318 
Valerius, Julius, 299, 300 
Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducenda 

Uxore, 57 
Vengeance of God's Death, 378 
Vernon MS., 327, 449 
Vices and Virtues, 425 
Vidal, Peire, 68 
Villehardouin, 125 
Vincent de Beauvais, 77, 88 
Virgil, 88, 90, 252, 284, 288, 289, 297 
Virgilius, 88 
Vision of Thurkill, 401 
Vision of Piers Plowman, 403 



5°° 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Vision of the Monk of Evesham, 401 

Vision of Thespesius , 398 

Vision of Tundale, 399-400 

Visio Philiberti, 65 

Vita et Moribus Philosophorum, 101 

Vita Herewardi Saxonis, 259 

Vita Merlini, 66, 251 

Vita Monachorum, De, 62 

Vita Sancti Edwardi, 359 

Vceux du Paon, 303 

Vows of the Heron, 129 

Vox Clamantis, 108, 372 

Voyage of St. Brendan, 131, 403 

Vulgari Eloquio, De, 79, 108 

Wace, 97, 116, 120, 121 -122, 130, 
147, 169, 171, 215, 350, 351, 352, 
353. 354. 357. 362, 376 

Wagner, 203, 214 

Waldo, Peter, 94 

Walpole, 340 

Walter of Bibbysworth, 132 

Walter of Hemingburgh, 45 

Walthdof{ WalJ>eof), 31, 117, 258, 260 

Walther von der Vogelweide, 74 

Wanastre, 135 

Wanderer, The, 442 

Wars of Alexander, 301, 302 

Wauchier de Denain, 116, 215, 228 

Wedding of Sir Gawain, 224, 225, 
226 

Weston, Miss, 205 

When Holy Church is Under Foot, 

37° 
Whole Prophecie (Thomas Erceldoun), 

209 
Why I cannot be a Nun, 373 



Wldslp, 421 

Wife of Bath's Tale, 189, 224 
Willem, 332 

William de Conches, 51, 55 
William de Longchamp, 40, 60 
William IX. , Count of Poitiers, 69 
William of Jumieges, 122 
William of Malmesbury, 30, 32, 36-37, 

69, 123, 171, 276, 359, 363 
William of Newburgh, 42, 62 
William of Ockham, 10, 29, 100, • 104 
William of Palerne, 312 
William of Poitiers, 122 
William of Tyre, 316 
William of Wadington, 118, 411, 412 
Winner and Waster, 372, 403, 430 
Wireker, Nigel, 60, 76 
Wit and Folly, 430 
Witches, Essay on, 91 
With longing I am led, 446 
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 5, 70, 176, 

229, 244-245 
Wooing of Our Lord, 385, 386 
Wright's Chaste Wife, 321, 322 
Wycliffe, John, 29, 59, 71, 99, 100, 

104, 105, 143, 342, 378, 416, 452 
Wydeville, Antoine, 423 
Wynkyn de Worde, 157, 332, 340, 

424 
Wyntoun, Andrew of, 304, 363 

Yonec, Lay of 199 

Ypomedon, 113, 117, 188, 310 

Ypotis, 425 

Ysolt, 204, 205, 206, 212 

Ysopet, 118, 331 

Ywain and Gawain, 179, 230-232 



UFe'33 



